israeli politics

This should be a day of reflecting and planning – of talking with the Jihad and certainly talking with Hamas and Fatach.  But we’re just thinking about the next shvuot vacation. 

We’re also very into the results of the Eurovision contest and the fact that our star, Noa Kirel, and why she didn’t win the first prize, but only the third.  We’re such a frivolous people.

We don’t talk about the fact that there were two people killed in Israel – one an elderly woman who couldn’t make it down to the shelter and two a worker from Gaza.  The fact that the carpet bombing usually injures the helpless and not the ‘enemy’ is always ignored.  The fact is that this is the time to talk – not proclaim victory – is terribly crucial, but we crow and then never use that victory.  

what should we be talking about?  that we’re not going away but we understand that they have needs and we can work through some of them.  And we all need psychological support.

sleep- May 14, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

I have been watching the way our selection of targets in Gaza is very specific.  A Jihad leader, a team on the way to set off rockets, an arsenal.  On our end, however, the bombing seems entirely random.  

I have a friend who disagrees.  She says she has a target painted on her chest and they’re going to get her eventually.  Why a Jihad rocket team would choose a 70 year old woman who does nothing but eat and watch tv is beyond me, but she insists it is her they are after.

This example is proof that we have been driven mad by these random bombings – 

But I am on my way to comfort a mourning relative and can’t be kept home by the threat of a rocket.  Life is too precious.

 

random bombings – May 13, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

I suppose that’s all a citizen of this area can hope for – patience.  Waiting for 2 peoples who want to occupy the same place to figure out how to stop fighting for the moment.  We slept last night after four nights of being wired to jump out of bed and run two flights down to the shelter.  Not because it was safe to sleep but because we were exhausted.

And now we have to see family, solve family problems and start getting ready to go to the States in 2 days.

Yes, we’re going to the US for 2 weeks, to worry from abroad.  Not an easy task.  Mostly family events but also time to see friends.

This will be the first time I’m ready to give a reading but no one in New York invited me and I didn’t reach out to my usual places.  It’s not easy because I have a whole slew of new poems I haven’t even tried to publish and I know would have to go through a political strainer before the poems could even be considered.

 

patience – may 13, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

There are so many long-term effects of the fear that people are living in.  In Gaza as well as  Tel Aviv.  People try to live their lives but fear is always in the back of their minds.  There are incidents this week that take me back to the Gulf War  https://karenalkalay-gut.com/poems/love-and-war/

and others that bring me to earlier horrors.  There are also incidents that remind me to go on with life.  Last night, for example, we couldn’t sleep because – of the noise from Aviv Geffen’s concert in the park where 40,000 people celebrated…

 

 

fear and …fun – may 12, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

Getting ready for tonight’s zoom (Stephen Horenstein

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84362994423?pwd=MVYxUXVJLzMxZ0pCKzU4a1F2M1VRdz09

pretty sure we’ll have a siren or two sometime tonight, so if I disappear, hang in there.  Stephen Horenstein will take over while I’m gone.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable – they’ve been going at it all day.  I’m not sure we’re letting them feel like they haven’t lost.  The only argument against the fact that they’re dropping thousands of rockets on us is that we’ve hit children.  But I know the protocol has been to cancel the mission if there are children anywhere around, so I don’t know how this could be a major factor.  Of course, the children sleeping with the 3 Jihadi leaders we killed in response to the first rocket attacks must have killed children and wives as well.    This is terrible, but I don’t think it was avoidable.  Of course, what do I know?  I’m just an old lady cowering in the corner, hoping this is over soon.     


booms and zooms -may 11, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

So far there have been more than 350 rockets this afternoon fired at us, and we’ve been down in the shelter cleaning it up, airing it out.  It was really filthy from disuse and I am full of dust and squalor.

But I know we’re going to need to go there soon, and I have a deck of cards ready to entertain my companions.

I’m not going to include the photos of rockets sent by my grandkids.  It’s too much.  I don’t mind seeing them so much but it seems pornographic to have the kids watching this kind of danger.

Are we are not unaware of the damage done to the people of Gaza.  We know it well, and wish them all well.  Except the guys who are dropping rockets on us indiscriminately.  Those, we’re trying to get rid of.

 

 

 

brief update – may 10, 2023 Read Post »