program. this is the rocket defense system that has worked relatively effectively at getting good reviews now. this is a system that the united states has helped design and pay for to assist israel. it has picked off maybe a third of the rockets that have headed into israeli territory over the past several days. they also talked about the need for a deescalation of what is happening. this exchange of rocket fire. the president also exchanging calls in the last 24 hours with the leader of turkey, the newly installed president of egypt, mohamed morsi, trying to encourage them to engage with hamas. of course, hamas is classified technically with the u.s. government as a terrorist organization, there are no formal ties, trying to engage hamas to stop this rocket attack to come to some sort of solution so cooler heads can prevail, mara. >> one of the things in terms of the political issue here, the president in the past has been criticized for not being strong enough in his support of israel. do you get the response in washington that his response now is significant in satisfying