| this is what normal looks like? (letter #3) | ||
About half an hour ago Tzippi and I returned from a short trip to Gan Yavne, about a five minute drive away, to fill up gas (it's good to have a full tank) and do some grocery shopping. Since only about an hour and a half earlier rockets had (again) been fired in our general vicinity, though not close enough for us to enter our SPS, we'd hesitated about going out. Even if we don't have "proper" protection, if there's an alert it's preferable to be home. When we got back in the house I said that I'd call my friends in Hamas to let them know that we're back and that they can start sending their rockets again. So far things are (still) quiet. Since I last wrote we've sat in our SPS at least three times, perhaps five. I think that Tzippi keeps track and reports on Facebook. I don't. Not feeling that something is extraordinary is, after all, pretty much the definition of normal.
"Normal" shouldn't mean doing more of the same yet expecting a different outcome, but that's the way our government, and I guess Israel in general, views this present skirmish. I'm not sure it can really be called a war, though for those being bombed it pretty definitely is. There's no point in counting the number of times we've been told that Hamas has exhausted their inventory of rockets so they'll soon be begging for a cease fire, though I guess somewhere along the line that may actually turn out to be true. Then again pretty much everybody knows, though few are willing to admit, that during the coming period of quiet they'll do a good job of replenishing their supply. In other words, the only really logical solution to all this is mutual recognition and agreements that permit both sides to live peacefully. Yes, I know - I've been saying this since even before I moved to Israel and such recognition still doesn't seem around the next corner. And that suggests that we'll be doing this again in a couple of years (and I write that while we still haven't finished this round).
It's a good guess that fewer people in Israel today recognize this necessity than did so ten or fifteen years ago. Our government is to blame for that, but there's more than enough blame to go around. As long as Hamas sees the dissolution of Israel as the only possible "solution" they're most probably going to continue to see more and more destruction in Gaza. Simply put, Israel is not going to announce that it suddenly realizes that a sovereign Jewish presence in the middle east isn't workable and then decide that we'll all go back to Europe (which, of course, is not where more than half of us are from). And here I return to the issue of blame. The woke left could play an important role in bringing about a resolution to this conflict. If could recognize the legitimacy of both the Palestinian and the Jewish narrative. It could recognize that on a worldwide scale of "land theft" what happened here is among the least problematic. It might even actually give agency to Jews, rather than seeing them as nothing other than pawns in a white European colonialism. Am I really asking for too much? It's incredibly easy to view our conflict in simplistic terms. It seems that doing so is also very satisfying - especially when Goliath Israel pummels David Palestine. (Would it make sense for us to stop using our Iron Dome defense so that when 3000 rockets fall in Israel we'll also have lots of death and destruction? Would that help us garner a bit more sympathy? How many deaths would such sympathy be worth?) But it shouldn't really be that difficult to recognize the legitimacy of both narratives. I know lots of people who have succeeded in doing so.
I'm not a fan of Tom Friedman, but sometimes he definitely knows what he's talking about. A couple of days agao he posted For Trump, Hamas and Bibi, It Is Always Jan. 6 in the New York Times. Among other things he wrote:
That's very accurate, though Bibi's rather blatant move to keep himself in power is only one part of a more distressing picture. Israel's refusal camp needs Hamas as an enemy in order to justify not pursuing any sort of agreement with the Palestinian Authority. As long as we have an existential enemy bent on our destruction we can justify not making peace. This, of course, also means that Bibi has no real intention of "finishing off" Hamas. He needs them.
I started this letter around 18:00, and I've been writing on and off throughout this evening. It's now 01:00, meaning that it's now Wednesday. Our Tuesday ended with an additional barrage of rockets (at around 23:45) - this time very much in our neighborhood. We not only had three sirens for our immediate area but also heard very substantial booms. This was the second time for us this evening. Around 21:00 Nadav called us just as we were on our way to our SPS. I'd thought that he was calling because the app on his phone told him Hatzor was getting rockets but he calmly told us that he doesn't have that app and frankly doesn't want it. He was calling simply because it was a convenient time for him. (A few days ago Tzippi prepared a short video (below) while we were in our SPS. She put it out on Facebook, but I uploaded it to YouTube so that it's easier to get to.) And twenty minutes ago we had an additional barrage, though this time not close enough to us to require returning to our SPS. It's time for my shower which is "normal" at about this time. And maybe we'll also sleep, more or less comfortably, through the night.
I finished the above paragraph (from approximately "the classical music station") after this one which took precedence. Things happen a bit too quickly for even a fast typist, especially one that attempts to establish a bit of framework for what he reports. I was writing about that heavy barrage that didn't reach us when ... a new one did. We sat for a few minutes in what I refer to as our semi-protected space (let's abbreviate that to SPS), hearing a number of booms, including loud ones, above us. Clearly it's hard to give play-by-play when things are happening faster than I can report.
Last night we went to bed a bit earlier than usual (which is actually rather normal for us on 'erev Shabbat). So we were in bed around 01:00 when sirens went off and we were back in our SPS for about five minutes, and then again ten minutes after that. I'm known as a very good sleeper and this morning Tzippi reported that she got up to go to the SPS two more times during the night, but since she wasn't sure that the sirens she heard were distinctly for us (we hear sirens from towns all around us) she didn't see the point in trying to wake me. Between my last report of three days ago and last night we've sat in our SPS at least three other times. I guess that the fact that I don't exactly remember means that we've gotten used to this.
Another siren (and the subsequent booms) delayed the starting of this sentence for about five minutes. On a more pleasant note, we also spoke with Hila on the phone getting an update from her. This weekend she's at Giv'at Chaviva at a seminar for HaShomer HaTzair and though all is well with her she reported that the group of post-high-school students she's responsible for in Be'er Sheva was shipped out to a kibbutz in the north for safety and that rockets had fallen very close to their ken.
At least until about an hour ago I'd been intending to go to a demonstration this evening. Various groups are organizing vigils. Most of these focus on internal issues ("Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies" - in Hebrew it rhymes). At present I'm not aware of vigils directed toward stopping Israel's bombing of Gaza. Two days ago I knew of one central demonstration, but it seems that now the plan is small vigils in various communities. With the latest rocket attacks these have become ill-advised. I'm not sure I want to go to the spot on the road where I usually demonstrate considering that rockets have fallen pretty much at that exact spot twice in the past. The central Jerusalem demonstration at the Prime Minister's residence (Balfour) has been cancelled for safety reasons. So it looks like I'll be home this evening - getting upset at the news but not doing anything about it.
There are a number of political issues that demand attention, and a report of this kind that doesn't include those in the larger picture is definitely lacking. But considering that I started writing this almost an hour and a half ago and have pretty much typed myself out, I'll have to try to get around to those soon.
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sent: May 19, 2021 |
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to an exchange following this letter to War Writing |