Half asleep, I found myself watching “High Noon,” the 1952 film with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelley.  “Why am I watching this instead of going to sleep, when any moment a Houti rocket may send me to the shelter and if I don’t sleep while I can, I’ll be too exhausted to make my exit in time?”  I had been mulling over the success of the Houtis in cancelling many flights to Israel just by writing letters threatening world-wide attacks to the airline companies flying to Israel, and decided to take a break by going to old movies.

But there they were, the same excuses of the citizens who refused to join the sheriff in defending their town – the defenses that the sheriff isn’t perfect, that the problem isn’t theirs, that business will suffer, that they will be endangering themselves.  Grace Kelley plays the Quaker bride who is only convinced at the end of the film that her intervention is necessary to save the life her love. 

My beloved high-school history teacher, a Quaker himself, once told us that at a meeting the participants sat silent, not responding to an issue, until one old man stood up and in his frail voice said “Two skeletons were in a closet.  For centuries they stood silent.  Suddenly one turned to the other and said, “You know, if we had any guts we’d get out of here.” 

I remembered that remark when I thought of the terrible implications of a country threatening international airlines – after their successful bout of indiscriminating attacks on shipping.