Target Practice Gets Graphic

Jerusalem City council has hoisted banners up along all our main streets to celebrate 40 years of "unity". To see a mock-up map of a divided Jerusalem, and view the fourfold security threat if, in the words of cabdriver Rodney King, "we can't all get along" , just click here. Each weapon's range is shown, so you can judge your neighborhood's safety from potential mortars, Qassam rockets, Kalashnikov fire and the like. How comforting.

Friends recounted the other night how , after their daughter's high school graduation, they'd invited all her buddies to a big party at their upscale home in West Jerusalem. The students who normally live on the East Side were nervous about attending. (This was at the height of the Second Intifada.) "We're worried about suicide bombers," they admitted. "They don't operate on our side of town." Point taken. Being asked by guards outside cafes whether or not you are packing a pistol still doesn't give us much comfort these days.

The city space sacred to three different religions has been a sanctuary from all-out war inside Jerusalem for decades...any side who destroys it will trigger the apocalypse. Few people would want that, other than the ultras grazing flocks outside the Old City walls and readying them for sacrifice in a third temple.

Contemplating the ruin of life as we know it is one way to make a living, it seems.
The same gamers, from artishok.co.il, also produce a scenario of an Israeli/US attack against Iran, and vice versa, featuring Dolphin submarines, aircraft carriers, nuclear sites, and missile launchers. Press here.
The graphics company does a series of realistic demo maps for Debkafile, and these make conflict seem as simple as being the first to "push the button". It would be good to include nuclear fall-out in the aftermath, as well, on these interactive infographics, as they are dubbed. The name, pronounced like "artichoke", provides some hope. These clever guys seem rather prickly but presumably do have a heart.