gee, they insist they need charity but they can afford missiles

 Things must be serious in the Middle East, because the gov't here is arranging to evacuate some of our OFW from Israel. But this article mentions only 300, and I believe there are 30 thousand Filipinos there, so although the gov't is making contingency plans if things get worse, they are not planning a full evacuation.

Joy reports that one of her friends heard from her daughter there: She is not planning to return home, but does note that the government warned people to go to their shelters when the siren hits.

A lot of the news stories imply Israel is the bad guy of course, because they retaliated after being hit by thousands of missiles.

So who is paying for the missiles? Is it an Iranian proxy war, so they were put there by Iran who has openly swore to destroy Israel for the last 30 years, or did the locals buy them with all that foreign aid money given to them by various western countries and charities?

I don't know, But here is Strategy Page's take on what's going on.

.....

If I post a lot of stuff from StrategyPage here, it is because they get things right about countries that I happen to know about, but that the press, especially in the USA, often distort the story, usually out of ignorance of cultural nuances rather than bias.

as for the Middle East: It's not just Israel. Here they discuss why Greece is sending stuff to Saudi to help protect them against missile attacks from Iran's proxies there (read Houthi rebels in Yemen, a group that makes the Taliban look liberal, but thanks to Iran's sophisticated propaganda network, are usually portrayed as the victims here.).

and like China, who is using their ships to block fishing (with a "wink wink" to all and sundry that they are now able to block passage of civilian ships in the West Philippine sea), the Iranians are busy building ships that could stop shipping there.

President Obama tried to make nice with Iran, but they tricked him. So Trumpie boy reestablished sanctions and pulled aid from their proxies in Gaza etc. But now Biden is trying to make nice with them again. Of course, instead of seeing this as a way to grasp at peace and help their own people (the Iranians have been badly hit by the WuhanFlu), they saw it as a message they can "do their thing" without the cop on the beat (i.e. Team America World Police) getting in their way.

Sigh. 

Don't ask me. 

We are still in partial shutdown, and Manila is in strict shutdown, but the good news is that the number of new cases has fallen. 

The bad news? The Indian varient is here.

Sigh.