blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

I don’t know too many people who sleep well around here.  Maybe the neighbor who flirts with all the tenants (gorgeous Arab girls) and wonderful Phillipine aids who come out to the hall on the second floor every night when there is a bomb alert.  We’re in the basement shelter with some really sang-froid neighbors so it’s only if we get visitors from the street that we have any fun any more.  Anyway it’s not that people are scared – it’s that their sleep patterns are no longer certain and they are disturbed.  They’ve been trying to put in the back of their minds the sight of terrorists entering shelters and butchering, raping, burning, and dismembering them alive, but the vision sometimes comes up.

 What about the people in Gaza, you ask?  I think it’s a little difficult to feel as much for them now, when we’re in such danger.  We’re busy trying to help out the ones physically closer to us.  For example, last night we brought an enornmous quantity of sweaters and coats to the center for the 200000 displaced people in our country.  The first rain was violent and reminded us that most of these people left everything behind if it hadn’t been destroyed, and they don’t have any protection.  We were a little worried about the rockets but the empathy was stronger. 

Tomorrow we’ll worry about the Gazans more.

sleep – nov 15, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

It has been a very difficult time for us, but somehow I’ve gotten used to rockets, used to staying home every evening, even used to the fear that I will be one of those Jews who don’t manage to find a hawthorne bush to hide behind and will get slaughtered. (i think this was this weeks chadid. more when i am not so sleepy). 

But hearing the daily news of death – of soldiers, of hostages, of babies – is too much to bear.  I can’t watch the elegies any more.

But when Biden said, hang on, I prayed he had a secret plan.   

“hang on” – Nov 14, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

How unsurprising it was to me that there were Hamas headquarters under the children’s cancer ward, that it was full of explosives and the hostages were brought there first.  The reasoning of Hamas is slowly becoming clear – the way they utilize our values against us.  So we come to understand that anything we hold dear, honorable, basic, is susceptible.  

Life, to us, is sacred, but the lives of the Gazans seem to exist because it provides the Hamas with a cover.

I know this is not true for the Moslems  I know.   It is actually not true for all the Moslems I know.  But it is true for Hamas.

 

rantisi hospital Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

Does anyone remember Walter Cronkite?  A news anchor whose morality always stirred me, he had a program that relived historical moments called “You Are There,” and it always ended like this “What kind of a day was it? A day like all days, filled with the events that alter and illuminate our times.  And you were there.”  He brought me into the Boston Massacre in 1775, the death of Socrates, the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  And he made me feel what it was like to be part of history. 

One of the many emotions I feel in this land is the involvement in history – the good and the bad times.  I feel that everything I do makes a difference. 

But in the past few years I’ve felt that my presence doesn’t matter, that this tiny country has lost the ability of the individual to influence it, to create a better history. 

But when I see the people – the way they’ve been working together supporting each other in so many ways – transcending governments, going beyond the expected of regular people –  I am overwhelmed.  It’s not just the expressions of love and care for the hostages, the generousity toward all the refugees.  Look at my day.  Well, not all day – but we had covid shots at the health clinic – 2 Arab nurses shot us up, and both made sure we were comfortable after that.  And then at the pharmacy, the grocery, the builders –  Despite everything that is going on here – the prejudices and the hatred, the bombing, the reasons for hatred, divisions – people can transcend – and I am here.

I’m going to try harder to be There.

 

you are there – nov 12, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

The doorbell rings in the middle of the night.  Probably a mistake – someone pressed the wrong button or something.  But she wakes up and immediately fears that she and her family will be tortured and slaughtered.  

When she tells me about it the next day, I remember my Hitler dream as a child, that was very similar to her thoughts now.  

How is it that our dreams are the sames over generations?  

nov 11, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

I listen to today’s news on the radio and then watch Al Jazeira.  Same news but opposite.  We talk about the Hamas headquarters in hospitals – they talk about bombing patients.  We talk about how many Hamas terrorists were killed, they talk about children.  We emphasize the humanitarian aid being given to the hundreds of thousands of Gazans who descended to the south, they talk about our bombing them.  We talk about hostages, they talk about captives.  They show footage of the wounded, the dead. We show footage of the hostages. 

As for the West Bank, we are concerned with the numerous attacks on individual Israelis, they show our searches for attackers as invasions of cities.

and we both quote whatever parts of the speeches of politicians that suit our narratives.

Not a good way to begin a discussion of what is happening in this area.  Not a good way to establish a means  to understanding.  But what choice do we have?

respect – a thought – nov 11, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

This is a post in progress – at least it’s a subject I think about a lot, especially as this situation deteriorates.  Right now it is a ramble and you could easily skip it today and wait until I have something more organized to say. 

today as I was talking to Oren and he introduced the subject of the need for respect for one another in this political situation, I suddenly realized what an enormous issue it is.  

Let me begin with the fact that we don’t understand the mentality of the Palestinians and they don’t understand us.  That’s the simple part.  They know how to surprise and shock us, but they have no idea about how to deal with us, how to achieve their goals and respect our lives.   Of course, they are not interested in understanding us – they just want to annihilate us, even at the cost of their own citizens.   Their savagery proves they did not see us as human beings, and the term respect is meaningless.  

At the same time, I have incredible respect for the Palestinian Israelis I have met, the way they have advanced their lives against all odds, the way they have incorporated both the West and the East, and in some ways transcended the difference between the two.

 

respect – nov 10, 2023 Read Post »

israeli politics

Wiley fellows, those Hamas guys.  Here I was waiting for a rocket at our friends’ house, saying “I’ll leave AFTER the next barrage,” and it didn’t come.  And we went home – went to sleep dressed and ready – and it didn’t come.  So after a night like that we had to take a nap the next afternoon – and the siren goes off.

And of course Ezi has to take pictures – four rockets shot down over our heads.

  

He takes good pictures, you’ve got to admit it.

 

rockets -nov 10, 2023 Read Post »