It's 6:33 am in Tel Aviv. It's overcast. We were going to the beach and I got caught up writing email. Outside an ambulance pulls into the hospital across the road. Sirens wail all the time here but I am used to it. I've lived in this apartment for almost a year-and-a-half.
The Office of the Home Front has advised everyone to be prepared for rockets hitting Tel Aviv. We don't know that they can but this is the situation now we are at war.
How did we get here? One soldier kidnapped three weeks ago and today the Middle East teeters on the brink of an apocalypse. Up north, nearly two million Israeli's live in bomb shelters - except for those who have fled south. Yesterday at work we were asked if we could take in refugees. Almost a 1000 rockets have been fired at Israel and 20 cities and villages hit. A handful of Israeli's, Jews and Arabs, have been killed. Hundreds have been wounded. The agriculture and tourism industries are collapsing. Social services funding which would have uplifted Israel's poor for the first time since the 2nd intefada, will be diverted to the military. I think the economy is getting ready to take a nose-dive but no-one's talking about that just yet.
Hizbullah's actions have been of benefit to every country in the region except Israel and Lebanon. It has given Hamas a boost, diverted international attention away from Iran's nuclear ambitions and may have strengthened the position of Syria, Iran's and Hizbullah's ally, as the West pleads with it to help restrain Hizbullah. The latter are the latest heroes having once again taken up the great Arab cause of standing up to Israel.
And I think that paragraph says it all. Do I believe Israel should retaliate? Yes. If we lose, Israel is finished.
Do I think we should be bombing Lebanon like crazy? Certainly not. "Lebanon must burn," said my manager at work two days ago. He's religious. I thought he was a fool before. Now I know it.
My girlfriend said a few days ago that we should have asked the Lebanese to join us in a war to kick Hezbullah, and by default, Syria, from Lebanese soil. It would have embarrassed Iran and forced the Palestinians - over a negotiating table - to stop firing Kassams at Israel and to give us back our kidnapped soldier. We should have invited the Lebanese army to attack Hezbullah from the North while Israel attacks from the south, crushing them. "But of course, we won't" she said. "Our government is STUPID STUPID. I hear the same rhetoric I have heard every time there is a war here and it's WRONG. It's a new world and you can't behave this way. Our government has to be wise."
As a South African I know that peace is always possible. As a Jew there's a reality that says there's always someone out to get us. So we do not always act with wisdom. We fight to survive, we fight for America. Without America we cannot survive.
So we wait. For the sirens. For the rockets. For... nothing. If they sound, we have one minute to get into the bomb shelters, or reinforced rooms - every residential complex has them since the first Gulf War when Scud's hit Israel. I take my camera with me, water and a stash of dollars, on my way to work.
Just now we discussed stocking up on food supplies - canned goods, bottled water and grains - and a first aid kit. I'm backing up data and my girlfriend is finally packing her artwork and clothes away. Took a war to make her clean up ;-)
Aside from that things are... pretty normal in Tel Aviv.
Russel
The Office of the Home Front has advised everyone to be prepared for rockets hitting Tel Aviv. We don't know that they can but this is the situation now we are at war.
How did we get here? One soldier kidnapped three weeks ago and today the Middle East teeters on the brink of an apocalypse. Up north, nearly two million Israeli's live in bomb shelters - except for those who have fled south. Yesterday at work we were asked if we could take in refugees. Almost a 1000 rockets have been fired at Israel and 20 cities and villages hit. A handful of Israeli's, Jews and Arabs, have been killed. Hundreds have been wounded. The agriculture and tourism industries are collapsing. Social services funding which would have uplifted Israel's poor for the first time since the 2nd intefada, will be diverted to the military. I think the economy is getting ready to take a nose-dive but no-one's talking about that just yet.
Hizbullah's actions have been of benefit to every country in the region except Israel and Lebanon. It has given Hamas a boost, diverted international attention away from Iran's nuclear ambitions and may have strengthened the position of Syria, Iran's and Hizbullah's ally, as the West pleads with it to help restrain Hizbullah. The latter are the latest heroes having once again taken up the great Arab cause of standing up to Israel.
And I think that paragraph says it all. Do I believe Israel should retaliate? Yes. If we lose, Israel is finished.
Do I think we should be bombing Lebanon like crazy? Certainly not. "Lebanon must burn," said my manager at work two days ago. He's religious. I thought he was a fool before. Now I know it.
My girlfriend said a few days ago that we should have asked the Lebanese to join us in a war to kick Hezbullah, and by default, Syria, from Lebanese soil. It would have embarrassed Iran and forced the Palestinians - over a negotiating table - to stop firing Kassams at Israel and to give us back our kidnapped soldier. We should have invited the Lebanese army to attack Hezbullah from the North while Israel attacks from the south, crushing them. "But of course, we won't" she said. "Our government is STUPID STUPID. I hear the same rhetoric I have heard every time there is a war here and it's WRONG. It's a new world and you can't behave this way. Our government has to be wise."
As a South African I know that peace is always possible. As a Jew there's a reality that says there's always someone out to get us. So we do not always act with wisdom. We fight to survive, we fight for America. Without America we cannot survive.
So we wait. For the sirens. For the rockets. For... nothing. If they sound, we have one minute to get into the bomb shelters, or reinforced rooms - every residential complex has them since the first Gulf War when Scud's hit Israel. I take my camera with me, water and a stash of dollars, on my way to work.
Just now we discussed stocking up on food supplies - canned goods, bottled water and grains - and a first aid kit. I'm backing up data and my girlfriend is finally packing her artwork and clothes away. Took a war to make her clean up ;-)
Aside from that things are... pretty normal in Tel Aviv.
Russel
kod:
interesting post... we agree on things disagree on others.