Today, while driving into town, I saw two little Arab girls walking to school. Ma'aleh, where I work, is situated on Shivtei Yisrael Street, which is pretty well the dividing line between east and west Jerusalem. I stopped at the traffic light and two little girls, aged about 11, crossed the road in front of me. They were wearing their school uniform - dark blue trousers and light blue three quarter length tunics. Each girl had glossy black hair braided down the length of her back. And suddenly I felt such a longing for peace.
I've lived in Israel for 25 years and peace has never, ever seemed further away. Today, on the radio, I heard a statement by American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in which he said that Hizballah, armed by Syria and Iran, now has more rockets than most governments. The next war is coming, it seems. As an Israeli, I am trying to imagine how it will be. Will Hizballah from the North and Hamas from the South both attack at the same time? Since Operaton Cast Lead a little over a year ago, Hamas has been smuggling arms into Gaza through the the networks of hundreds of tunnels it has built between Egypt and Gaza. Do we have enough soldiers and technology to defend ourselves if we get attacked on both borders simultaheously, God Forbid? Will both my older kids, aged 22and 20, be called up if they do? (Yes, they will).
Well, I have two "comforting" thoughts. One: if we try to destroy any of the tunnels smuggling rockets into Gaza, we will always have some young woman like Rachel Corrie to stand on our bulldozers and get killed trying prevent us from doing it. And then people in the US and the UK can write plays about what a heroine she was, and even have a ship named after her. Two: If Hizballah should decide to start a war and use all those rockets it has been stockpiling to target Israeli towns, we will have thousands of people marching through Trafalgar Square in London shouting "We are all Hizballah!". Such a fabulous world we live in.
And still I am longing for peace. I am going to keep in my mind, the picture of those two little Arab girls walking to school. I am trying to imagine such a life in this part of the world - Arabs and Jews going peacefully about their daily lives together without fear or animosity. I was glad to feel that feeling of longing in my heart again this morning.
It's nice to know it hasn't been burnt out of me completely.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Monday, 12 April 2010
The six million, this time around
I just heard the two minute siren for Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Day.
It's ten in the morning here, and we're all busy at work. As the siren begins, the chatter stops, and each of the seven of us at our different desks stand to attention.
What goes through my head during that time? The answer is, everything. Everything I have ever seen, ever heard and ever read about the Holocaust. The stench of it, the crowding of it, the starvation of it, the death of it, the sadism of it, the endless, endless tears shed by it, all wrapped around by the deep hatred which caused it; -all these compete for a space, for a visual image in my head. All this while the siren sounds.
This year, the siren for me is a warning, too. The depth of this hatred surrounds Israel now, threatening to engulf her. The hatred is back, dressed in new clothes. The six million this time is the six million Jews of Israel, a thorn, an anathema, an incovenience, an obstrucution and a provocation to the nations of the world.
But there's a difference this time. Israel is the end place. From here we do not run, and we do not hide. From here we are not powerless, we are not surprised, we are not silent, we do not beg. From here, the place where we've built everything from nothing, had our children taken by vicious enemies, grown our fruits and vegetables and flowers, made some of the most famous medical advances of the 20th century, and prayed at the Western Wall, from here we face that old, old hatred face to face. Whether or not we will prevail is in God's hands. But the starting point is different.
It's ten in the morning here, and we're all busy at work. As the siren begins, the chatter stops, and each of the seven of us at our different desks stand to attention.
What goes through my head during that time? The answer is, everything. Everything I have ever seen, ever heard and ever read about the Holocaust. The stench of it, the crowding of it, the starvation of it, the death of it, the sadism of it, the endless, endless tears shed by it, all wrapped around by the deep hatred which caused it; -all these compete for a space, for a visual image in my head. All this while the siren sounds.
This year, the siren for me is a warning, too. The depth of this hatred surrounds Israel now, threatening to engulf her. The hatred is back, dressed in new clothes. The six million this time is the six million Jews of Israel, a thorn, an anathema, an incovenience, an obstrucution and a provocation to the nations of the world.
But there's a difference this time. Israel is the end place. From here we do not run, and we do not hide. From here we are not powerless, we are not surprised, we are not silent, we do not beg. From here, the place where we've built everything from nothing, had our children taken by vicious enemies, grown our fruits and vegetables and flowers, made some of the most famous medical advances of the 20th century, and prayed at the Western Wall, from here we face that old, old hatred face to face. Whether or not we will prevail is in God's hands. But the starting point is different.
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