The Vuz Vuz 2

I learned the difference between firecrackers and gun shots in Brooklyn, It's now 10:30 a.m. here in Remat Mamre, and for the past hour, my wife and I have heard explosions, and they are not fireworks. While the Arabs do set them off at weddings, they do not generally have weddings so early in the day. Also, they don't sound like fireworks and the reports keep coming from different locations and varying in tone and frequency. I do believe we are witnessing a shootout, and a burst of what sounds like automatic small-arms fire has just confirmed it. The Arabs working on the building next door are still working, and people are still walking about in the street below us (as in down the slope), but everyone is much more quiet and subdued. I'll wait to see if Arutz Sheva carries any word of this, and put off my trip to the Kirya 'til it quiets down.

Update: I was in Hebron by the Patriarchs’ tomb later in the day, and there I met an old-time Hebron Jew, who enlightened me. Today was grade school graduations for the Arab kids, so they were celebrating in their customary way, with a combination of especially loud fireworks and shots fired in the air, scaring the crap out of a lot of people, but thankfully not over anything real.

Update: Night has fallen, and the fireworks are growing louder and more widespread again. My son, who was in Gush Etzion all day, says that the Arabs have been doing the same over there, with the fireworks and shots in the air.

I suspect what we are seeing is a pre-teen banana-peeling fest; i.e., all those male kids who graduated grade school tonight are, for their special treat, making Foreskin Man in San Francisco a very unhappy man. And how can he rescue them without being Islamophobic, a definitely not chic thing to be, although anti-Jewish caricatures are in.