Monday, August 14th,

I write these words as the ceasefire between Israel and the Hezbollah comes into effect.  The eleventh hour rocket attack on Tel Aviv of which some commentators had apocalyptically warned mercifully did not materialize.  However, that is small consolation to a country that has seen over 3,000 rockets rain down on her civilian population during the past 34 days, of which no less than a third fell on Kiryat Shemona.

Last night, I was at the home of the Semucha family, whose 33 year old son,  Alon, was buried last Friday in the military section of Hod Hasharon's cemetery. It is not hard to identify the homes of our fallen soldiers.  People stand around outside on the street talking. The tell-tale, black  funeral announcements and messages of condolence adorn the entrance to the home.   Alon's unshaven father and brothers and his mother sit on low stools, their torn upper garments leaving no doubt as to whom are the chief mourners. Close to a hundred people - some family, some friends and acquaintances and some just strangers - sit around, expressing by their very presence their identification with the grieving family. Alon's parents, of Iraqi descent, tell me how their son took his tallit, tefillin and siddur with him wherever he went, even into the tank where his life would come to such an abrupt and violent end.

And then there was Uri Grossman z"l, a commander, whose tank was destroyed by Hezbollah forces on Sunday. Only last Wednesday, his father, the well-known author, David Grossman, had held a press conference with A.B.Yehoshua and Amos Oz calling for an end to a war that to this day bears
no name.

166 Israelis lost their lives during this conflict - 114 soldiers and 52 civilians. Up to 500 Hezbollah fighters have also been killed, together with hundreds of Lebanese civilians. What has been achieved? Maybe the Hezbollah has learned, at least for a while, that Israel cannot be attacked with impunity. Maybe the IDF has learned that it was caught, figuratively speaking, with its pants down and should not have allowed such massive
quantities of arms to be amassed on our northern border. Maybe the so-called world community will finally have learned that a peaceful, stable Lebanon cannot exist under circumstances in which an independent, well armed militia, aided and abetted by Syria and Iran, controls part of its territory. Maybe. And maybe not.

Only time will tell whether this war was of any avail. In Israel many questions will be asked about the preparedness of the IDF, the way in which the war was conducted and the manner in which Ehud Olmert and defence minister, Amir Peretz, handled the whole affair. There is also considerable dissatisfaction with how the civilian population of northern Israel was left very much to its own resources and not given the level of government support and assistance that they should have received. Echoes of New Orleans. Now there is much rebuilding that will be needed - physical, economic and emotional - to restore life in our northern towns and cities to some level of normality.

Politicians and generals will argue about who was responsible for this war and the questionable manner in which it was conducted. As one commentator put it this morning: The war may be over, but now the war of the Jews will begin.

Micky Boyden