http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/08/18/israel-leper-or-light-unto-the-nations-part-3-from-woodstock-to-the-promised-land/?singlepage=true
“From there it was a long journey to the people that dwells alone, for whom the bombers are background noise. The Woodstockers didn’t know that in this world nothing of any real value — like a restored homeland — comes easy. That you may have to guard it 24/7 and make sacrifices — not for peace, but to survive at all.Israel dwells alone in having almost no margin to indulge dreams and fantasies. Yes, it too has indulged some —and always paid quickly for it. Meanwhile we hear the din and chatter out there about peace and solutions — not far removed, in its grasp of reality, from the Woodstockers.”
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky,
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation.
Thus sang Joni Mitchell in “Woodstock,” a song of haunting beauty that she wrote in 1969 at the height of Vietnam War protest. Like all peaceniks, she assumes that “our nation” (technically, she was Canadian) is responsible for the hostilities, and if its bombers would just turn into butterflies, peace would reign.
In many places in Israel — a small, cramped country — you can hear the bombers in the sky on training flights. It most piques your interest when you hear them at night. Usually they’re just practicing night flying, but it could mean there’s been—or is going to be—an incident somewhere.