Gaza War - 2014

Thursday night I spent in the hospital - not in pain, but definitely not sleeping. Tzippi got back to the hospital Friday morning around 10:15, and my doctor came by to take a look, and to release me, about an hour and a half after that. The drive home (a bit less than an hour) had a minimum of alerts - the radio overrides whatever is being broadcast to tell us where rockets are falling (or about to fall).

My afternoon naps are usually spent on my back, but at night I like to sleep on my stomach and/or side, and at present I'm spending the night on my back. (I'm not really sure that this is required, but it sort of makes sense.) The result is that I wake up numerous times and I'm not really getting a night's sleep. Instead, I'm tired throughout the day. I should add that I've got to take antibiotics for a week and these also tire me out. So, though I'm sort-of well, I'm also not particularly functional. Most of today has been spent reading and dozing, and getting to the keyboard demands sitting up in such a way that I'm putting a bit of pressure on my incision. I should add that as of this writing, about 17:30, I'm considerably more comfortable than a day ago, but I can't complain that I've got close to no work that has to be attended to this week - when I fall asleep at meetings I prefer that it be because I'm bored rather than that the antibiotics are affecting me.

So I'm home. Last night there were only a few alerts. Tzippi and Hila went up to the chadar ochel to get food to bring home, and they reported that it seemed that everybody was doing the same thing. (Nadav should come home next weekend, and Eitan has written to ask how things went.) My primary exercise in this first day of being home is getting up and walking to our sort-of protected space when an alert sounds.

Which sort of brings me to our "other" situation. We didn't turn the television on this morning until our first alert, at about 12:00. (We've had a couple more since then.) It's been on the rest of the day - reporting considerably more than we really want to know. Libbe asked about the Jewish Voice for Peace petition, and I really don't know what to answer. I think I've pretty consistently criticized my government for just about everything, and it certainly deserves it now. But somehow I find it strange that this petition doesn't at all recognize that somebody else, on the other side, should be criticized. Our instant visual culture makes it easy to reach the (not far from true) conclusion that Israel is destroying Gaza, but until I'm told how Israel can legitimately defend itself, I'm not sure I'd sign.

It seems that in general Israeli public opinion leans toward "let's get this over with", without any understanding of the fact that doing that is impossible. It doesn't follow that because we want "peace and quiet" (with "peace" having a very different meaning than what you might ordinarily expect) the Palestinians in Gaza have to continue living under the conditions they're in. And in the middle of that last sentence, just as the reporter in Ashdod was saying that it had been a very quiet day, sirens started - including by us. We heard a number of hits - either "Iron Dome" interceptions or rockets falling.

And I guess that means that I don't really have much new to report.

	more updating on the health and war fronts
	Thursday night I spent in the hospital - not in pain, but definitely not sleeping. Tzippi got back to the hospital Friday morning around 10:15, and my doctor came by to take a look, and to release me, about an hour and a half after that. The drive home (a bit less than an hour) had a minimum of alerts - the radio overrides whatever is being broadcast to tell us where rockets are falling (or about to fall). My afternoon naps are usually spent on my back, but at night I like to sleep on my stomach and/or side, and at present I'm spending the night on my back. (I'm not really sure that this is required, but it sort of makes sense.) The result is that I wake up numerous times and I'm not really getting a night's sleep. Instead, I'm tired throughout the day. I should add that I've got to take antibiotics for a week and these also tire me out. So, though I'm sort-of well, I'm also not particularly functional. Most of today has been spent reading and dozing, and getting to the keyboard demands sitting up in such a way that I'm putting a bit of pressure on my incision. I should add that as of this writing, about 17:30, I'm considerably more comfortable than a day ago, but I can't complain that I've got close to no work that has to be attended to this week - when I fall asleep at meetings I prefer that it be because I'm bored rather than that the antibiotics are affecting me. So I'm home. Last night there were only a few alerts. Tzippi and Hila went up to the chadar ochel to get food to bring home, and they reported that it seemed that everybody was doing the same thing. (Nadav should come home next weekend, and Eitan has written to ask how things went.) My primary exercise in this first day of being home is getting up and walking to our sort-of protected space when an alert sounds. Which sort of brings me to our "other" situation. We didn't turn the television on this morning until our first alert, at about 12:00. (We've had a couple more since then.) It's been on the rest of the day - reporting considerably more than we really want to know. Libbe asked about the Jewish Voice for Peace petition, and I really don't know what to answer. I think I've pretty consistently criticized my government for just about everything, and it certainly deserves it now. But somehow I find it strange that this petition doesn't at all recognize that somebody else, on the other side, should be criticized. Our instant visual culture makes it easy to reach the (not far from true) conclusion that Israel is destroying Gaza, but until I'm told how Israel can legitimately defend itself, I'm not sure I'd sign. It seems that in general Israeli public opinion leans toward "let's get this over with", without any understanding of the fact that doing that is impossible. It doesn't follow that because we want "peace and quiet" (with "peace" having a very different meaning than what you might ordinarily expect) the Palestinians in Gaza have to continue living under the conditions they're in. And in the middle of that last sentence, just as the reporter in Ashdod was saying that it had been a very quiet day, sirens started - including by us. We heard a number of hits - either "Iron Dome" interceptions or rockets falling. And I guess that means that I don't really have much new to report.
sent: July 12, 2014
	to the next letter to War Writing