The Israel-Iran War, operation Rising Lion, started for us at 3:00 AM, when the air raid sirens across the country sounded. All of us are glued to our phones, if we have them, being updated on the potential threat to the homeland. As of 6:00 PM, Israel Time, the day has been quiet as our air force eliminates the threats to Israel. As the Sabbath is about to begin, I found this video from Oren, from the Traveling Israel YouTube channels that best describes what and why this war started. We pray for peace in Jerusalem.
in Yemen. And while we are able to intercept almost all of the missiles from the Houthis using our David’s Sling, Arrow, Iron Dome, and now Iron Beam defense systems, the shrapnel from the demolished missiles still rains down on parts of the country, small bits of metal falling at terminal velocity. Last night’s missile rained down debris in the area just south of my city. No casualties, B”H. Fortunately, Karen and I were able to finish our episode of Star Trek by watching it on my iPhone as we waited for the all clear.
I received a message today from Deb Kaiser, W0DLK, that Keith Kaiser, WA0TJT, passed away in April. Keith will be sorely missed by the amateur radio community and the Boy Scouts of America, where he brought amateur radio to International scouting events.
I recorded an interview with Keith in February 2016, Episode 82 where he discussed his love of digital modes and sending radio packages into space in high altitude balloons, calling it "the poor man's space program". He contributed content and time to the QSO Today Virtual Ham Expos and was an avid listener of the QSO Today Podcast. May Keith's memory be for a blessing. I am halfway though my treatments for the multiple Myeloma cancer. I am showing good progress, now able to walk and breath on my own. I have some decisions to make about my treatment in the next few months hopefully leading to a full recovery.
I hope to be back on the podcast soon. I have a lot of video content from previous QSO Today Ham Expos that I would like to put up on YouTube to make it easily searchable and an additional valuable ham radio resource. I just need the time to curate it. My XYL, Karen, has had a full recovery and is back to daily swimming and helping me with my schedule and transportation. My friends and neighbors have been nothing short of spectacular with food, transportation, shopping, and anything else we needed when both of us were "laid up". They continue to be a strong support system for us. I pray for a full recovery and to be the one offering support instead of receiving it. For updates on what is happening in Israel, I refer you to my "Eric's News Link" in the box to the right. I am unable to comment on the "situation" without spending too many hours doing it. So I am letting others speak for me. Sticking to ham radio seems to be the right medicine now. 73, Eric 4Z1UG I said in an earlier post that my multiple myeloma cancer was a new project, a way to re-center my life around new priorities based on my inability to do much but get better over the 1 year course of treatment. My XYL, Karen seems to be on a similar course, now in the hospital for four weeks, with a 45 year old staff infection that has come back with a vengence. So the two of us are "resetting" at the same time. I can picture us, both in the living room, looking at each other, "what you want to do"? , "I don’t know, what do you want to do"? This much time together will also have its challenges and opportunities.
One of my oldest friends, Brad, who was a big help with the QSO Today Virtual Ham Expos, decided this week to take a vacation, with his wife, to Tel Aviv for a few days to enjoy the city life, the restaurants, and the pleasant walks on the beach and surrounding attractions. He and his wife particularly liked a walking tour of buildings in Tel Aviv that were Bauhaus, a modern German style popular during the 1930s. Of course, Brad and his wife had a wonderful few days.
Tel Aviv is a happening city and many Israeli's who don't live in the city, work or visit to enjoy its museums, concert halls, and attractions. Tel Aviv is also the bullseye for Houthi ballistic missiles and drones in the last week or two. Like most Israeli's now, we live and play normally, even if our cities are under attack. One night at two on the morning, our friends made new friends, in pajamas, in the hotel stairs, as the missile warning system blared across our land. Perhaps human beings are infinitely adaptable to places and situations. We Israelis adapt to our surroundings and situations. Our desire in Israel to be normal in abnormal situations, especially, when the situation drags on, now over a year. We pray for peace in "Jerusalem", the whole land of Israel, and a time that will limit our social opportunities in the middle of the night on the hotel stairs. 73, Eric 4Z1UG My head is clearing from the medications that were given to me for pain, so I thought to take this opportunity to wish all of you Merry Christmans, Happy New Year, Happy Haunakah, and that we all proceed with positive energy and health into the future.
I sincerely appreciate all of the prayers, good thoughts, and messages that you send to me and to my XYL, Karen, who was also suddenly hospitalized for an infection. They are all part of our recovery that we feel day to day. Just a short note to update that I am home from almost 3 weeks in the hospital. Five radiation treatments, therapy, and enough drugs to stop an army, I feel like tennis shoes bouncing around in a clothes dryer. My biologic therapy is working, I am told. I am happy, alive, and looking forward to getting back to QSO Today.
It takes all of my strength to write these few words of thanks. Thanks for your messages and prayers. I feel them and know that I am one of the luckiest people alive. 73, Eric 4Z1UG
wandered into the garden of one of my wife’s former students who was heading off to college and had to find a new home for her. It was meant to be as she is great with just about anyone.
After my last blog post, "Circle the Wagons", I made no further posts. I wrote thousands of words that I did not publish, because the changes happening here and in the West were to so devastating to me, including the explosion of antisemitism on the streets of the West and on its college campuses was reminiscent of pre-war Germany and the silent majority that sat on the sidelines and let it happen. Perhaps nobody saw it coming, but hardly anyone outside of the Jewish community took to the streets. Antisemitic violence on the Harvard campus, "depended on the context". Every time I sat down to write, something new and even more unbelievable happened, leaving me with no words.
Perhaps the stress of the news, being the executor of my father's estate, the very personal losses we in Israel are taking every day caused a change in my health. At age 67, I walked 6KM every day with my dog, ate properly, avoided sugar and other chemical food products. I was on top of the World with my health, enjoyed my work and the podcast. I had the tiger by the tail. It has been at least a few weeks since I wrote “They Are Not Innocent”, and in that time so much has happened around the World, in Israel, and in the USA, that I can’t get my brain around it. It is clear now that the Hamas embedded in the college campuses across the United States and Canada was ready for its response to the October massacre of Israelis, living and celebrating in the border communities next to the Gaza strip. The protests began outside of Israel, even as Hamas was broadcasting, on the internet with cellphone and Go-Pro cameras, its murder, rape, beheadings, incineration of babies, etcetera, part of a well organized plan to eradicate the Jews in Israel, once and for all.
As an American-Israeli (yes I pay taxes in both countries) living in Israel during this war on five-fronts (Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Judea and Samaria, Houtis in Yemen and the Red Sea, and Iran and other proxies), the overwhelming amount of nonsensical news of the World’s reaction to our self-defense is mind blowing. Every time I sit to write about it, I don’t know where to start. I received the call from my brother, just before 4:00 AM IST that my father, George Guth, passed away at the age of 94 years. Since he outlived my mother, his brother, most of our relatives, and his friends, I thought to remember him here to you as a final tribute. The times have changed and an obituary with his name in the Sequim newspaper would go unnoticed. Sadly, when you live to age 94, where your circle has expired, the possibility of exiting your life without anyone noticing is very real.
I was a member of a group in Denver, linked to the "Hevra Kadisha", or the Jewish burial society, where we were on call to make the quorum of 10 men needed for the mourners to say the Kaddish prayer. Denver had many "old timers" whose children had left town many years before leaving their parents to volunteers, like me, to accompany them to their final resting place. It struck me that problem with a long life was that it could be a life lived alone at the end. I loved doing this job, this "mitzva", because of the stories told at the graveside, by members of the community, of the deceased and their contributions to Denver's rich history. I loved these stories, and perhaps that is the reason that QSO Today has been about stories. The IDF is getting ready to enter Rafah, the southernmost Gaza city along the Egyptian border to finish off two Hamas terrorist battalions and to free our hostages, taken October 7th, who we hope and pray are in the tunnel network below Rafah. The world, the President, his State Department, the European allies, the UN, and the hostile antisemites invading American Ivy League campuses, say that the 1.5 million “Palestinians'' are innocent civilians camped on top of the Hamas infrastructure. They say that Israel is committing genocide; that we are the Nazis.
The Palestinian population of Gaza, and by extension, the Palestinian population of the West Bank, are not innocent. They are generations of Muslim jihadists, propagated by the West’s support of UNRWA and 70 years of “education”, committed to the annihilation of their Jewish neighbors, even at their own expense and the expense of their children. They say this in their own polling after October 7th, that they would do to the rest of us, the Jews, what Hamas did on October 7th. Hamas says, "from the river to the sea", a slogan used by the terrorists and their supporters across the world, that they don’t want a two state solution, but the destruction of Israel, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. I believe them.
As older people tend to do, I was up at 1:45 AM last night when I saw the Arrow antimissile system shoot down over Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem, about eight ballistic missiles launched from Iran. Over 200 threats, drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, all shot down by the combined forces of Israel, USA, Britain, France, and Jordan. "The bombs bursting in air".
The XYL, the dog, and I went to our safe room until we knew it was clear to leave. We are ok, in good shape, and preparing for the next round. Thanks for all of the inquires. There will be more later - its just that it is all too surreal to know where to begin. 73, Eric 4Z1UG Gaza, for years has been described by the press as, "An Open Air Prison" or "the most dense population in the World (New York City is actually 6 X more dense). Frankly, it is amazing to me that those of us that live less than an hour away from Gaza, who have not been in Gaza since before 2005, had no idea what was happening there. We did not believe the "open air prison" since Israeli completely left Gaza in 2005, handing the Palestinian Arabs the keys and making 8000 Jews homeless. They had the opportunity to make Gaza the Singapore of the Eastern Mediterranean. Well, maybe they did and their public relations is just poor. We, Israelis, know that Gazans have taken billions of dollars in foreign aid, built almost 500 miles of tunnels 1.5 times longer than the London Tube system, and have shot, even before October 7th, over 20,000 missiles at Israel communities outside of Gaza. Since they have the keys, its was not clear to us why there were any refugee camps left in Gaza. Modern Hospitals in Gaza number 35 before October 7th, with 3412 beds, for population of 2 million people, or one bed for every 586 people. The video below is a recent news report, in Hebrew with English subtitles, on what we discovered in Gaza from their social media and "boots on the ground". In Israel, "suckers" are called "friers". Friers is not an enviable position and I guess we should have known more about our neighbors. We should have known that there were tunnels large enough for truck loads of merchandise, supplies, fuel, and weapons under the Egyptian border at Rafah. We are friers and learn our lessons very quickly. Hopefully the rest of the World will also see how they were duped and not be friers in the future.
On October 8th, over 300,000 IDF reserve soldiers were called into active duty. Over 120% of the those called showed up from not only Israel proper, but from where ever they happen to be in the World at that moment. El Al Airlines was running over capacity to return Israelis home to battle Hamas in Gaza. Every reservist comes from every corner of Israeli society. In my own circle, dozens of neighbors, friends, co-workers, store employees, etcetera, were suddenly gone to war.
This story and its impact on Israeli society is told extremely well by Wendy Singer, the sister of Dan Senor, host of the Call Me Back podcast, one of the many podcasts that I listen to regularly. She has a different vantage point from mine to tell her story. An old friend, who reads this blog, sent me a message after my last post, accusing me, the IDF, and Prime Minister Netanyahu of genocide against the innocent civilian population of Gaza in our war to uproot Hamas, the terrorist group that viciously attacked us on October 7th. On that day, over 1200 Israelis, were murdered after being tortured, burned, raped, beheaded, and poisoned with gas.
It was Saturday, October 7th 2023, on Simchat Torah, one of our most joyous Jewish festivals in our calendar. It is the very last day of the High Holy days, after a beautiful week of Sukkot, where we live outside in our booths. Sukkot is my favorite holiday and time of the year. It looked to be a beautiful weekend. At 6:30 AM, I was out with the dog on her weekly play date with Buddy of similar breed. David, Buddie’s master, and I sit to the side to avoid the two dogs playing and moving at breakneck speed. We started hearing the booms, almost continuous for over a half an hour. Since it was the Sabbath (Shabbat) and a holiday, where we don’t use electronics, it wasn’t until a few hours later that I heard what was happening from one of the security agents who had a radio. We made the Simchat Torah service in the street in front of my house, so that at least a few times, we could run for cover when the air-raid sirens sounded. I get a regular update from Israel RealTime from Akiva on WhatsApp. This just came through. In the context about UNRWA's direct involvement in supporting Hamas, the discovery of Hamas tunnels and data center under the UNRWA Gaza headquarters confirms our suspicions. The rest of this post is Israel RealTime.
JOINT IDF AND ISA ANNOUNCEMENT OF A SIGNIFICANT UNDERGROUND HAMAS INTELLIGENCE ASSET AND WEAPONS INSIDE OFFICES—THESE FINDINGS WERE FOUND WITHIN UNRWA FACILITIES Over the last two weeks, IDF and ISA forces have been conducting a division-level targeted raid on terror targets in northern and central Gaza. The problem with living in a different hemisphere from where I grew up is the assumption that all of you follow the same news that I do, from day to day. The revelation that UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, a special agency created only for Arab refugees from Palestine, was complicit in the October 7th massacre of Jews in Israel, surprised politicians, educators, journalists, and the "elite" in the West. For us living here in Israel, it was common knowledge that UNRWA was the only refugee agency that provided services to refugee descendants generations after the UNHCR - the UN Refugee Agency had done its job settling tens of millions of refugees around the World after World War 2. It is common knowledge that UNRWA propagates the refugee myth, with the help of the West, that Arab refugees from Israel's war of independence, a defensive war, in 1948, would someday return "home" at the expense of the Jews.
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AuthorEric Guth, 4Z1UG / WA6IGR, is the host of the QSO Today Podcast, and an amateur radio operator since 1972. Eric has lived and worked in Israel since 2000. Archives
April 2025
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