Sounds funny to say it, but from the sound itself, I can’t tell the difference between a sonic boom and the explosion of a terrorist rocket.

Yesterday, late in the day, there were a number of “BOOM”s – explosion sounds – that revealed themselves to be sonic booms. Several major military establishments are perched in the Negev around Beersheba, and apparently the pilots feel the need to break the sound barrier over the city with considerable frequency.

That said, the only way I can tell what the boom was is by what happens afterwards. If there are no screeching sirens, then it was a sonic boom. If, on the other hand, emergency vehicles are sounding their alarms, then… well, then it was a rocket or mortar. Usually.

Not so, last night. There was this BOOM, and then within a couple of minutes, the sirens started up. I could hear they were heading in the direction of Soroka, which is the Negev’s major medical facility. As the sirens increased – clearly several emergency vehicles were operating – I went inside to see if any of the news media were reporting what happened. And where.

There was nothing on the news. But since there weren’t any more BOOMS, either, I eventually forgot about it.

This morning, we know. Last night, three cars collided with a bus headed to Eilat. A 29 year old woman was killed and seventeen people were injured. The emergency vehicles were ambulances bringing the victims to Soroka.

Well. It wasn’t a terrorist attack. But it was a disaster – at least for those involved.

Was it reasonable to think it might have been another rocket attack? Certainly.

The Arabs in Aza have been stepping up their attacks again – in fact, they average a rocket a day fired out of Aza, as our Arab “peace partners” try to kill Israeli civilians. There’s fewer, certainly, since last December’s Operation Cast Lead. But in Sderot and other communities near Aza, the rocket-incoming sirens are still wailing.

Then too, on Tuesday, Hezbollah terrorists in the north, from Lebanon, fired a Katyusha rocket into Israel – these are big babies, and designed to do more damage than the kassams the Aza terrorists generally (but not always) use. No one was injured – but with every incoming rocket, the nerves fray, just a little. Waiting for the real thing to start all over again.




The thing is, we all know it’s going to start up again soon. This period of relative quiet – both in the north and south – is just the time the terrorists are using to restock and rearm. It has nothing to do with “peace”, or any desire therefor. They don’t want “peace”. They want Israel gone, and they’ll keep up the attacks until they achieve their goal – or until Israel acts with sufficient strength to convince them there’s no hope. No hope in their plan to get rid of Israel.

So on Tuesday, one Katyusha hit – it was the ninth Katyusha fired into Israel since the (alleged) end of the 2006 war. Last February 21, one of them landed near a house and injured three people.

More than just the one rocket fired Tuesday, however, military officials discovered four more, ready, armed and in position to fire. The Katyushas are being supplied by Iran, which also trains the Lebanese terrorists in their deadly trade.

And how did the world react? The governments of the various peace-loving countries in the world responded by saying, generally, that the firing of deadly rockets into civilian communities in Israel is a violation of UN Resolution 1701.

Isn’t that amazing? That anyone -- anyone with any kind of a brain at all – could expect a band of terrorists to obey international law?