“Where will we go if a siren goes off?”
An Opinion Editorial from Bob Feferman, Former Community Relations Director of the Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley
Since February 28, questions abound over the joint American Israeli military strike on Iranian regime targets. Many Americans are asking, “Why now?” and “Why should America be involved?” The best answer comes from our Israeli granddaughter.
We have three grandchildren who were born and raised in Israel. Our son and daughter-in-law made Aliyah in 2005. Ten years ago, when they were visiting America, our granddaughter Moriyah (now age 14) was with her mother in a shopping mall. Out of the blue, she turned and asked her mother, “Mommy, where will we go if a siren goes off?”
In that one question, Moriyah encapsulated what Israelis have been facing for decades. It’s a brutal reality that many Americans cannot comprehend.
Since 2007, the year Hamas took control of Gaza, nearly 20,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza, with the targets being Israeli civilians. All this was before the brutal attack by Hamas on October 7th, 2023. It was the Islamic Republic of Iran that supplied those rockets to Hamas along with the funding and training to build their own rockets.
Nearly 20 years of Hamas rocket attacks caused the countless sirens that sent our family to seek shelter. The accumulated trauma of those attacks impacted our granddaughter along with thousands of Israeli children. What is their motivation?
Iran and its terror proxies, especially Hamas and Hezbollah, have one deadly obsession: the destruction of Israel. That’s why Iran has provided an endless supply of weapons, funding, and training to these terror proxies for decades.
History is our witness.
With the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, there was a real hope for peace between Israelis and Palestinians through the two-state solution. That’s when Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations, backed by Iran, embarked on a campaign of terror to literally blow up those hopes for peace.
Between 1993 and 2005, Hamas and other terror organizations carried out more than 150 suicide bombings in Israeli cities on buses, in restaurants and in shopping malls, killing over 1,000 Israeli civilians.
Fast forward to 2024.
In the middle of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, Iran began to fire ballistic missiles at Israeli civilians to support Hamas. Because these missiles carry warheads that are much larger and more deadly than rockets from Hamas, the Iranian missile threat to Israeli civilians became clear.
During the 12-day war in June 2025, there was a hope that Iran’s ballistic missile program and efforts to develop nuclear weapons would be set back for years. That was not the case.
After the war, Iran began to rapidly reconstitute its ballistic missile program. In recent negotiations, Iran refused to negotiate in good faith with the Trump administration, and it became obvious that Iran is determined to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran’s ballistic missile program also serves another purpose: to shield Iran’s ongoing efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
In the current war, Iran has fired more than 400 ballistic missiles at Israel killing 23 civilians and wounding more than 4,500 (as of March 23, 2026.) The use of cluster warheads on these missiles makes them even more dangerous. In addition, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and drones at northern Israel.
For Israel’s political and security leadership, the urgency of launching this military operation was clear. Although Israel has an excellent missile defense system, it is not perfect. An even larger arsenal of ballistic missiles in the hands of Iran could overwhelm Israel’s missile defense system and pose an existential threat to Israel.
Israelis don’t agree on many things. Yet for this military operation, there is a strong national consensus. Israelis cannot tolerate a nuclear and ballistic missile threat in the hands of a regime that repeatedly calls for their destruction.
For those who think Iran is only a threat to Israel, we are now seeing the danger posed to Iran’s Arab neighbors in the Gulf. Since the outbreak of this war, Iran has launched more than 3,000 missiles and drones at Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia.
How does all this impact the national security of the United States?
According to expert reports, Iran is also pursuing the development of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM’s) that can reach the United States. And Iran’s ability to close the Straits of Hormuz to shipping threatens the international economy.
Iran’s growing ballistic missile threat—combined with its determination to develop nuclear weapons—already poses a clear and imminent danger to Israel, the United States, and the entire Middle East. A regime whose leaders chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” must not be allowed to fulfill those threats.
With this military operation, America and Israel are doing the world a favor so that no child will have to ask, “…where will we go if a siren goes off?”
Bob Feferman is former Community Relations Director for the Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley