1st entry

July 17th, 2006

This is my first entry in the blog. I have created it for friends, family and colleagues who have expressed their concern for our well-being. I will keep people updated on our progress with work and other issues as we go through this difficult and tragic time.

Below is a more complete text of a draft letter which I planned to send to colleagues of ours around the world. In the end I issued a simpler, shorter version. I have added the complete version below which includes some of our political perspective here in Israel for those who are interested as I don't like to force my politics into business relationships. If you are interested you are invited to come here to learn about it. I will try to keep it updated frequently.

Shalom,
Yves.


Dear Friends and colleagues,

Many of you have seen on the news that Haifa has been targeted with missile attacks and have called and written expressing your concern for us. First, I would like to thank everyone for the care they have shown us.

We want to let you know that we are all OK. We know that it actually looks much worse on TV than it is here on the ground. While we are taking every precaution (we get early warnings of attacks and we stay indoors and in specially protected rooms when necessary) we are not afraid.

We are continuing our work as usual (though some of us are working from home now) and meeting all our scheduled deliveries and obligations on time.

The people here are staying calm in spite of the 1000+ rockets and missiles that have fallen in Israel in the last 6 days or so. That's because in a country where there are three opinions for every two people (:-), this is a rare occasion where we ALL understand that is what we need to do to support the cause and allow our forces to continue their work. We understand that a religious extremist terrorist group like Hezbollah can't sit a few meters on the other side of our fence with 10,000 missiles aimed at us, and conduct raids inside Israel and capture our soldiers.
I don't like to insert politics into business. However, the news doesn't always seems to say things the way we see them and I need to express our side clearly for anyone who is curious.

I can assure you that no one here wanted this, we all would much rather be raising our children, building our careers and businesses and other peaceful pursuits. However, now that it has started even the most pro-peace and non-violent among us here (among which I include myself) understand that Israel must finish it and rid us and the Lebanese people of the terrorist group that is controlling the south of their country and dragging them and us into unwanted war. We hope that with Hezbollah out of the way, a true Lebanese democracy can grow in friendship and peace beside us, no longer held hostage to a Syrian/Iranian creation.

We pray that it will be over quickly and that there will be minimum casualties here AND IN LEBANON. I have never been so proud of our boys in uniform. Despite the massive size of the ongoing operation and the destruction to infrastructure, only 100 Lebanese fatalities to date testifies to the fact that they are taking the absolute greatest care to minimize losses to innocent civilian life. All violence and loss of life on both sides is tragic and it makes us very very sad.

I suspect that while the destruction in Lebanon is much worse than it is here, the pictures on the TV: 1. Appear worse there as they appear worse than they are here in Israel. 2. The pictures of destruction in Lebanon are the same ones over and over again so perhaps there isn't' that much to show, and 3. They are often destroyed buildings with Hezbollah flags left flying on them so they obviously are legitimate targets.

I also noted for example that it is only the runway in the Beirut airport that is being damaged, not the entire airport, which if Israel had wanted to cause maximum damage, they would have levelled the whole thing. After the runway was first bombed, the news reported that it was repaired and operating the next day. That is not very serious damage.

From our perspective, this is not retaliation or revenge. and therefore no comparison should be made as to the force of reaction we are using. It is in part an operation to retrieve soldiers kidnapped in a raid on Israeli soil (Israel never leaves a man behind), but it is mainly an operation to remove a terrorist organization from our borders and which is holding us and our neighbors captive for many years. It's goals are in accordance with the wishes of UN resolution 1559 calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah 6 years ago.

Thanks again to the many of you for showing your concern. Please come in every few days to see more posts

Shalom,