Old Article - Close (Enough) to the Front Lines

I wrote the post below the day I returned from an end of the year trip to Israel (January 7). It describes a rocket attack by Hamas that landed near the house where we were staying. It clearly influences my feelings about the desire of Hamas to reach a peace. I have been criticized recently for my support of Israel because of the "disproportionate" response that the Gaza war represented. While desiring peace and supporting a two-state solution, I obviously disagree with that representation.





I’ve just returned from two weeks in Israel. On our frequent trips to see family (cousins, kids, grandkids), we usually stay with our cousins and good friends at their house in Gan Yavne, which is a small, mostly agricultural town just to the east of Ashdod. This trip was no exception. We had a relaxed three days with them before the war with Hamas (“Fire in the South” as one TV network there calls it). We knew the war had started on December 27 as the F-16 activity at the nearby airbase became constant.

All continued well in our neck of the woods until Monday morning, the 29th. During the weekend, Hamas had been launching missiles at towns throughout southern Israel, reaching Ashkelon (some 10 km. to the south of us). On this morning, however, the air raid alarm sounded in the neighborhood, we ran into the shelter room in the house, and 10 seconds later, we heard the concussion of the Grad relatively nearby. When we went outside, we discovered that it had fallen some 300 meters from the house in an open field. The picture shows the police and military standing around the crater left by the missile explosion. As you can see, the crater is fairly small (as was the explosion since its energy was not contained by surrounding walls and buildings).

We stayed with our cousins for another day until prudence demanded that we move to the house of other cousins further away from the range of the missiles to let our cousins sleep in the shelter room, which they have done from then until now.

This war is an up-close and personal event for all Israelis. I have never seen the country more unified even as it prepares for a contentious election that squarely puts the issue of peace terms with the Palestinians at the center of the political landscape. I only encountered one person, a very worried mother of a soldier serving in Gaza, who was against Israel’s initiative in confronting Hamas.

The international press generally covers Israeli conflicts at a safe distance--from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. In the first few days of this war, CNN and BBC were both uniformly and unfairly critical of Israel’s bombing of Hamas targets. Then, Lyse Doucette of the BBC moved her base from Jerusalem to Sderot, the Negev town closest to Gaza and subject to constant bombardment by Kassam rockets and mortars. Living with the constant threat changed significantly the balance of her reporting. Later the same thing happened with France 24, a newer news channel in English and French. On both channels, the abuse and misstatements spewed by various Palestinian spokespersons were now challenged and a more balanced coverage ensued.

It’s important that the question of the rockets get resolved. Getting shot at, even randomly, tends to focus one on the need to stop them. In part, it is the random nature of these unguided rockets that terrifies people. Being unguided, they can only be considered terrorist rather than military weapons. Israelis have lived with these things for 8 years, with no effort by the Palestinian Authority nor by Hamas to stop launching them. More heinous still is the storage and launching of these missiles from civilian locations, such as the UN Schools that have become the focus of attention in the last 24 hours.