Welcome to an emergency edition of the Commentary Magazine Daily podcast. This is a Saturday,

and we're in the middle of the afternoon. It's Shabbat. Ordinarily, we wouldn't do a podcast on a Saturday.

We wouldn't do a podcast on a Shabbat. But of course, the United States is at war, has struck Iran, with Israel, and we are here to try to bring some

illumination to that. And by we, I mean executive editor, Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

Hi, John.

And joining us is contributing editor and Big Puba at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Jonathan Shanzer. Hi, Jonathan.

Hi, John.

And in Israel, the columnist for the Jewish New Syndicate, co-host of the Israel Undiplomatic podcast, and my sister, Ruthie Bloom.

Hi, Ruthie.

Hi, John.

So, Ruthie, you are in Tel Aviv, and we have been in

communication since the middle of the night here in the United States. Just give us a sense you

have the indication as the war started, and you hear the the siren that very familiar siren that says

get thee to the bomb shelter so where's your bomb shelter and what's the scene like in your bomb shelter

okay so first of all my bomb shelter is sort of next door in the building next door in the basement

it's filthy and it's falling apart,

but it's a bomb shelter. And so all the neighbors in that building and my building can go in there.

And I'll tell you the interesting thing about today's first siren is that it wasn't an air raid siren about a missile

attack. It was a siren waking everybody up and keep in mind because as you pointed out it was

Shabbat and many people in Israel keep Shabbat, they observe Shabbat and they keep their

radios and televisions on a silent channel that only makes noise when there's an

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