I’ve been meaning to blog for ages now about my life being back in Israel, the last thing I expected however was that by the time I got around to doing so, it would be about life in Israel in the middle of a war or more precisely “an operation”.
I’m still going to start with the original blog which I think is probably the best way to frame my emotions as Operation Pillar of Defence plays out around me (feel free to skip the next few paragraphs if you just want the war stuff..).
Moving back to Israel after spending the last two years as a bit of a nomad has been for the most part everything I hoped it would be. I now live in Central Tel Aviv and on the whole am loving life as a Tel Avivi.
I love cycling to work each morning, running along the beachfront, the fact that I can go for a quick swim and outdoor gym session before work and that on Fridays I do yoga class on the beachfront and then go shopping in the crowded “Shuk Hacarmel” market five minutes from my house. I love that I live in the heart of the city, that at any given hour I hardly have to step outside and there are a range of coffee shops, wine bars or shwarma joints to choose from (and that some are even kosher). Yes, I know all this is sounding clichéd but after a year in Golders Green, I am loving being in the heart of an alive, exciting and busy city. (Nothing personal about Golders Green, I just was never one for Suburbia).
I also love the fact that my life, although not as exciting as being in Nepal or somewhere else in the developing world (which is in no way out my system) is still exciting. In the short time I have been back I have gone camping in the Beit Shean forests, woken up to go to Slichot in Nachlaot at 4am in the morning, run the TLV Nike night run, enjoyed numerous rooftop Shabbat dinners with plenty of alcohol flowing, met random people at various Saturday picnics and reconnected with friends from all over the world who like me have gravitated towards Israel because there is something about this crazy country that makes them not want to live anywhere else.
I have two interesting jobs, one working as a financial analyst which is really new and although surprising to anyone who knows me, I think is an important step in my long term plan of getting into the international development/social enterprise/”Base of the Pyramid” field where I hope to be in the future. I’m also very fortunate to work for two really great people who probably spend as much time working on social issues as they do on their “real jobs” in investment banking. In my spare time, I am also helping to organise a conference on Israeli Designed, International Development (ID2) which couldn’t be more aligned with my long term career goal of bringing together Israeli entrepreneurs and innovators with the international development community to start thinking about sustainable solutions to development problems (I know I sound like a advert, but I can’t help it that’s what I have been doing for the last few weeks, see http://www.id2.org.il/)
So in as much of a nutshell as possible, I live a very full, happy and generally meaningful life in this country.
So about this war....
When the first siren went off in Tel Aviv, I had no idea what it was, I was on the phone to a friend on the way home from work and thought it was an ambulance, luckily she knew better and instructed me to find shelter and go inside fast!
It’s amazing how as human’s we adjust, this afternoon, only 4 sirens later when the “red alert” went of, within a flash I was up and on my way to the stairway. I guess part of my lack of reaction the fist time was the fact that it just didn’t occur to me that there could be rockets in Tel Aviv, the geographical, cultural and commercial heart of Israel, the first time since the Gulf War in 1991, as one of the women in the shelter pointed out if rockets hit Tel Aviv, “a war of all wars would break out”.
The next siren I heard was as much of a shock was in Jerusalem where I spent Shabbat. Jerusalem is meant to be one of the least likely targets both because of its distance from Gaza and because its assumed that Hamas would not risk hitting one of the Holy sights. However at the beginning of Kabbalat Shabbat, one of the most peaceful times in Jerusalem when almost all traffic stops and the streets are filled with people on the way to synagogue a siren went off. I was in synagogue and the whole congregations went down into the stairway until the siren stopped. We then went up to finish the prayers, almost as if nothing had happened...
That’s basically my feeling of the situation in general, things go on as if nothing happened but there is certainly a tension in the air, people are still out sitting at coffee shops and bars are full of customers but if you listen in you catch whiffs of the conversations about the last “Atakah” (warning) or threads about the “matzav” (situation) and how long it will last. This morning when the siren went off I was in a meeting on the 21st floor of a building. As everyone headed to the stairwells most were pretty calm and joking but still they all had their blackberries out, checking that their families where safe, before going back to conclude the meeting, as if nothing happened...
We also keep reminding ourselves that this is life for residents in the South where such alarms are regular occurrences and the constant barrage of rockets in the recent days is a whole other level to the few we are experiencing in the centre. I also keep thinking how grateful I am for iron dome which intercepts most of the rockets and is the reason why we haven’t had far more casualties given the over 900 rockets that have been fired at Israel in the last few days. This is definitely my favourite piece of Israeli technology at the moment.
I also think of the people of Gaza, who don’t have such technologies although the casualties have been lower than previous wars. (Due in Part to the IDF learning from its mistakes and at least trying to be more vigilant with trying to avoid civilians, for example thousands of flyers are dropped before attacks warning civilians to get out the area.) It’s still a very sad situation, its sad that Hamas still uses civilian populations as human shields and that these people have to endure such violence.
I have been thinking about that a lot recently, I am certainly on the left side of the political spectrum and strongly believe that the Palestinians needs a State and that Israel should not be in the West Bank both for humanitarian reasons and if we want to preserve the democratic, Jewish nature of the state. But where does Gaza fit into this? Will Hamas ever be a peace partner? They don’t want a two state solution so if we withdrew from the West Bank what would that help the situation in Gaza? That’s not enough for Hamas and the other Islamic militants who don’t recognise the right of Israel to exist at all. That’s what’s so frustrating about this war, it has no answer or apparent solution. Eventually a ceasefire will be declared and you will have relative peace with an occasional rocket every now and then preventing complete peace for the residents of the South and those in Gaza continuing to live their difficult lives. But then things will probably escalate again and in a few years we will have another similar war with the resultant loss of lives, psychological trauma and increased antipathy, and the whole process will begin again...
When I arrived in Israel and I was younger and more innocent (both of which I acknowledge I still am) I used to tell people I came to Israel for three reasons 1. Because I believe I’m fortunate enough to live in a time where I can live in Israel after 2000 years of exile and therefore this is where I want to be. 2. Because I simply am happiest here, and 3. Because I think there are lots of problems with this complex country and if I want to have a say in it and be a part of its future, I need to live here. All of these reasons are still valid, but 3. Is the one that I think is most difficult, at least in the context of this war. There is so much you can do to contribute to this country, and people do, so many people are involved in volunteering in one form or another, working with African refugees, Palestinian-Israeli dialogue, or working with at risk populations in Israel, there is much to be done. But as far as the situation in Gaza is concerned, it seems so beyond our control. I do believe like any country Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens, and rocket fire should not be a way of life as it is for all those in the South but at the same time to me Judaism is about caring about ‘the other’, humanitarianism and respect for all life are for me the heart of what being Jewish and therefore the Jewish State is meant to be about, granted its not easy when Hamas is your neighbour but I do think we need to try find a way to balance these values with the need to defend ourselves, no easy task....
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