Sunday, February 3, 2008

They are back

My wife and I took a walk yesterday afternoon in the fields near Sderot. The weather was excellent, and I was thinking how nice it is to have a whole week without rockets. Once in a while the rockets stop for rather long periods and it's so easy to get used to a somewhat normal life. On the one hand we are aware that they may be back anytime and on the other we have this hope that maybe they are gone for good...
While walking back home the dreaded siren started alerting the shooting of rockets. We lay flat on the ground covering our heads. No place to hide out in the open. There were 3 alerts one after the other and then 2 very loud blasts. After a couple of minutes we got up and continued on our way with haste since we left the kids at home. Soon we saw police cars and an ambulance near the town cemetery which was on our path back home. A rocket fell between the trees near the cemetery. No one was directly hit. There were 2 people which were close to where the rocket fell being treated for trauma inside the ambulance and a bunch of kids with bikes circling the area.

The rockets are back. When we got back the kids seemed fine. They were at a friends house and hid in the safety room. They did not even mention the rockets to us until we asked them. They did however say before going to sleep that they rather sleep in the safe room than in their own bedroom...

The news mentioned the rockets only on the radio in the hourly broadcast.
The 8 o'clock news on TV did not mention a thing. The snow in the Hermon and the internal political situation are much more interesting to the average Israeli than a small town in the south being bombed. Especially when no one was physically injured or killed. It's not really news...

Until now only violent ways have been have been attempted in solving the situation. It has not worked and no one really believes it will.
The logical conclusion is that it's time to try something else... Let's talk with each other and find a way to easy everyones pains.

2 comments:

Lirun said...

i commend your bravery of heart

Anonymous said...

Talk was tried several times! What do you want? You want others to recognize your plight, but then what? Do you want it blared over a loudspeaker, which will stir up anger? You say the government is ignoring you and then you condemn them for responding to your situation. How can they win? I say again what do you want? Do you want to have Hamas and your President come over for tea and solve this very complex problem in one afternoon? That's not reality. Stopping the violence will not solve the deeper problems. Tell us about the deeper problems.... Isreal's security? Palestinian homelands? Hatred? Fear? Genocide? Calling for a cease fire doesn't solve any of it. You call Army attacks a temporary fix, well so is your one month cease fire.