Wednesday, August 20, 7:00 am Jerusalem time

 

Didn't sleep much last night.  When awakened by a siren it is hard to go back to sleep.  I felt safe, as safe as can be, in the basement apartment with my neighbor who works for the Belgian embassy and her 27ish year old daughter. After the siren there was a big bomb like noise not too far from here but hard to know where exactly.  The Iron Dome intercepted a rocket.  That was about midnight.  Before that, around 11, rockets did land in Tel Aviv; many shot at Ben Gurion.  What is of equal concern in some ways, is the collateral anger, frustration, who knows what all around Jerusalem.  There were reports (and tweets) from East Jerusalem that some (unknown) Palestinians had thrown molotov cocktails into a home, a bus and unknown destinations.  My friend, in the basement apartment, works in East Jerusalem.  This morning she has to go to work not knowing what the condition of her office or neighborhood is or whether it is "safe" to go there.  She is not allowed by the embassy to take a bus so, once again, she will take a cab and have conversations with Israeli and Arab cabbies. That is how she learned about the first rockets at 6:30 last evening.  Her Arab cabbie told her about it, that rockets were shot from Gaza and that Israel had responded.

Keep the tweets coming, with discretion.  Last night with my neighbor and her daughter, we discovered that if one can read tweets with discretion they are the most accurate and up to date information.  The problem is you have to tread thru all the emotional stuff.  We have not yet found a news station, in any language, that is "live".  When we do hear the news on Aljazeera and CNN, Sky News, Fox and Israeli stations, all report pretty much the same thing but with varying "commentary".  It isn't too hard to figure out the facts.  What feels to me to be humanly impossible is to listen, find safety and have compassion for all of the regular citizens of this area of the world. Having experienced one, only one, siren last night and knowing that people in my neighborhood and in all areas of Jerusalem were crouching along walls in the street or going into a meeklat, bomb shelter, if they are lucky enuf to have access to one, it is "easier" to imagine what the Palestinian people are going through intensified enormously.  But why is it so much more difficult and unsafe for them?  On the news this morning a Palestinian woman who was leaving her home for a "safer area" said "No one is looking out for us".  For me that is a most basic part of the problem.  Hamas (and ISIS and others) do not have the same respect for life, including their own, that civilized people do.  Just like I try, in conversation and thought, to distinguish between the government of Israel, the people of Israel and the land of Israel, so too for Palestinians (and all the moreso Arabs all over the world) Hamas does not represent them, look out for them.  It is so complicated and a most unbelievable human tragedy, with generations of history and human souls on all sides, probably living in the same circumstances as their ancestors, for generations yet to come. I cannot imagine how all the fear and hatred that is being transmitted in mother's milk will ever be overcome. We can listen to news and interviews from all sides, but the truth is that it doesn't feel like anybody has any power or control to change very much; least of all regular people, more of whom I hope to meet this year, on all sides, with all different perspectives.

With discretion, keep the tweets and responsible news coming.  I'll keep in touch as much as possible while at the same time trying to carry on with my life here.

I love you all

Ima, Mom, Savta, Ma'ayan