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Waiting for the ceasefire

Well, there are several alarms every day or night and we run to the
staircase and all our neighbors are also there, we live on the fourth floor
and there are three apartments on each floor, so people from 12 apartments
go into the staircase. There are known cases from the Second World War that
when a house was hit by a bomb and everything collapsed but the staircase
remained standing, so this is the safest place. We know that the chance of
one missile hitting exactly our house is very small, but if it happens than
for those where it hits it is a 100% danger. So the neighbors are a bit
nervous and a bit angry and grumbling, especially if the alarm came in the
middle of the night, but some are also joking. Some of them make nasty
remarks about the Arabs. In normal circumstances I would react when I hear
somebody saying such things, but now with my neighbors in the staircase I
don`t. I feel a bit of a coward for that. But I know that if I do this it
could start a very nasty emotional debate. They would feel that there is an
enemy who wants to kill all of us and that I am on the side of this enemy.
It would be very human to feel like that. My neighbors are essentially good
decent people even when they share prejudices which are common in the
Israeli society. I would prefer not to have a deep emotional quarrel with
them, which might last long after this stupid war is over.

The government still says `No ceasefire, we still did not hit all the
targets we wanted in Gaza`.

The most worrying is the inter-communal violence. Arabs attacking any Jew
they meet and Jews attacking any Arab they meet. Only a small number of
people are doing this on either side but the damage is huge. Of course it is
not a symmetrical situation. Arabs burst out in violence because they feel
discriminated and oppressed. Jews burst out in violence because they feel
their privileged position is threatened. But the result is very nasty in
either direction. And this might continue long after the missiles stop
flying.

I don`t think there was anything so deep in any recent times. It is more
like the time before Israel was created, when there were two mutually
antagonistic communities living under the Ottomans and then the British.
That is how the conflict started, exactly a hundred years ago, in 1920 and
1921 and 1929. Something stirred up the passions and people started
attacking and killing each other. It did not get that bad so far, ` only`
one person was killed, though several were severely wounded.

Just now came a message of an emergency demo of Jews and Arabs against
hatred and for equality and peace. Must stop this now and pass on this
message by mail and Facebook and whatsapp. Will come back later.

The message got to me at the last moment, too late to get there myself. It
is going on right now. I got it indirectly from a friend who got it from a
friend. I will try to locate the original organizers and ask them to let me
know when they initiate something. I sent a message to the Hebrew email list
`Joint demo today 6.30 PM Habima Sq. Tel Aviv, Jews and Arabs together call
for an end to hatred and violence, for peace and equality to everybody`. I
apologized for short notice and said those unable to come today will
unfortunately get many more reasons and opportunities to demonstrate.

Anyway, Beate and me have a long habit to listen to Classical Music for half
an hour before we go to sleep while eating melon or watermelon. Yesterday
Beate did not want to do it, she felt that being alert for the siren spoiled
the music. But tonight we went back to it. We now listen to Mozart. Much
more pleasant than listening to the news.

Early morning. There was in Gaza the worst attack so far, using 160
airplanes at once and also tanks and artillery (which is inaccurate, even
if they try artillery can`t avoid hitting unarmed civilians) About 20 people
were killed in Gaza tonight. There must have been terrible things happening
there tonight though most of the Israeli media will never report it.

It seems they were trying to destroy Palestinian tunnels. They either did or
did not. It certainly destroyed the houses which were on the ground above
the supposed tunnels.

On the Israeli side there was an intensive attack on the cities of Ashdod
and Ashkelon, about a hundred rockets at once. People there could not sleep
the night though no one was killed directly. `Only` an 87 year old woman was
killed when she fell down while running to the air raid shelter and one 50
year old man was severely wounded.

I feel ashamed of having had such a calm undisturbed sleep. Beate could not
sleep most of the night, even though there were no alarms here.

Many Israelis in the South are escaping and trying to find more quiet places
until this will end, which is the sensible thing to do. To be sure, Gazans
would like to do the same, but where in the Strip could they find a safe
place?

At least it seems that it comes near to the end. There was some negotiations
between the Americans and the Chinese on when will the Security Council meet
- the Chinese wanted today, the Americans next Tuesday, in the end they
agreed on Sunday - two days from now. This should be at least be the
beginning of the end of the madness. But for some people who are still alive
at this moment it will be too late.

The death toll in Gaza is now 109. About 40 women and children among them.

Netanyahu can now afford to end it. His most important aim was achieved - no
alternative government is going to be formed. He will remain PM for the time
being and likely we go to new elections in September. At least we will not
have to have Naftali Bennet who was going to be the new Prime Minister. He
is at least as right wing as Netanyahu and the only thing for him was that
he is not Netanyahu. Bennet`s party was disintegrating. His constituency are
very nationalistic people, they just did not want to see him go into a
government coalition with `Leftists and Arabs`, not in this inflammatory
situation. So, RIP Alternative Government, it would not have survived very
long anyway.

Perhaps after the September elections we will get rid of Netanyahu and get
somebody reasonably decent in his place. Or Netanyahu might win the
elections, who can tell? In Israeli politics, several months are several
eternities.

At least there were more actions of Jews and Arabs standing together against
hatred, widely scattered in various places. More are scheduled for today and
tomorrow. In one junction in the north there were Arabs giving flowers to
any passing motorist.

But still very many acts of inter-communal violence . The police is warning
drivers not to use the GPS system because it might lead you to dangerous
places, i.e. to a community of an ethnic group which might prove hostile. A
Jewish family, father, mother and three children were attacked when the GPS
led them into Umm El Fahm. They suffered intensive stone throwing but
fortunately other Arabs helped them get out. The friendly Arabs later found
the family dog who got lost in the fracas and restored him to the family.

I think I go back to bed to get some more sleep, Keep in touch.

The second night without any alarms. The attacks are now concentrated on
the South. The people there had a very restless night with ongoing alarms.
A man interviewed on TV said that his daughter was taking a shower when the
alarm came and she came running out naked and a minute later the shower was
broken into pieces by bomb fragments.

Of course, that is absolutely nothing compared with what the people in Gaza
are suffering. In this operation of Thursday night 450 bombs, each
weighing a tonne, were dropped on a small piece of land in an effort to
destroy the Hamas tunnels underground. It seems that was the most intense
bombardment that the Israeli Air Force ever did, more than in any earlier
war in Gaza or Lebanon. And of course, the buildings which were above the
tunnels were totally destroyed. They can claim that the tunnels were a
legitimate military target and the destroyed buildings were a `collateral
damage` but I am not sure the International Criminal Court in the Hague,
which is watching closely this Gaza war, will see it this way. Many people
escaped from this area, it seems the army did give them a warning, but still
the number of `only` twenty people killed seems very low. This is of course
counting only the number killed above the ground, not how many people were
in the tunnels which collapsed. (Note: On the following day it turned out
that the army hoped to catch hundreds of Hamas militants underground, but
was greatly disappointed).

Whatever happened in the tunnels, it seems a whole area of in the north of
Gaza City was destroyed. It will take years to rebuild, even if Israel
lets building materials come into the Strip - which it might not. They would
say that Hamas will use the materials to rebuild the tunnels and make them
deeper and more solid (which they probably would). Some of the building
destroyed in 2014 were not yet repaired.

The army does not think in terms of a complete victory, just of buying time
and then preparing for the next war five or ten years from now. Anyway, it
seems that they make a kind of implicit condition to Hamas (or perhaps it is
explicit, passed in via the Egyptians) that if they now retaliate against
Tel Aviv the war would last longer but if they confine the retaliation to
Southern Israel there will be a ceasefire within a few days. So I am in the
situation of being privileged, living again my comfortable normal daily
life while so many others have their lives very much disrupted - the Gazans
in a very terrible way and the Israelis in the South in a far less terrible
but still nasty way.

Meanwhile, nine Palestinians were killed yesterday on the West Bank in
demonstrations and confrontations with the army, and the funerals today will
turn into demonstrations and might lead to more people being killed... This
might be the beginning of the Third Intifada. And if so, it might be better
that the Alternative Government which was nearly formed last week was
aborted and Netanyahu remains Prime Minister. Let him deal with daily
repression on the West bank, not a new government which was going to be
headed by the right-winger Naftali Bennet but with left-wing parties having
portfolios and sharing responsibility for government policies.

A more light weight moment in this nasty time. In the TV report from the
town of Sderot near the Gaza border a child, I think six or seven years old,
was seen collecting fragments of the rockets which fell on the town. He
wanted to build a rocket of his own. The TV reporter asked him how many
fragments he wanted to have and the child said `Twenty`. The reporter asked
him if that would be enough for a rocket and the child said `At least a
small one`.

At the Haram A Sharif / Temple Mount Compound in Jerusalem, young
Palestinians collected tear gas canisters which were shot by the police and
made of them a model of the al-Aqsa Mosque. That is the same impulse as the
Israeli child - to take possession of the weapons which your enemy used
against you and make them yours.

I told you how during the alarm I avoided political debate with my
neighbors. But it happened anyway on the tenants WhatsApp group. There is a
man named Meir who is the volunteer taking care of the building maintenance
and calling a plumber if something goes wrong etc. and collecting from the
tenants the monthly maintenance payments - a lot of work and he does it very
well. I always knew he was right-wing and he knew I was left-wing but we
hardly ever spoke of politics..But now he placed on the tenant WhatsAapp
group a very inflammatory call which was circulating widely on the net, to
boycott all Arab businesses because `the Arabs showed themselves on the side
of the enemy and supporting terrorists`. I felt I had to react to this and I
tried to be mild and non-confrontational but still he reacted with a tirade
about that his late father lost an eye in a confrontation with Muslims in
Morocco and that he came to Zionist Israel to have a good safe life and he
lived in Jaffa among Arabs and had good relations with them but now they
behave nasty and are ungrateful for the good things Israel did for them so
we Jews should punish and boycott them and “hit them in the pocket”. He also
said that the son of his wife from her earlier marriage was killed years ago
as a soldier in Gaza. I know him and his wife (a very nice friendly woman)
for many years but I never knew that.

I wrote back in the WhatsApp group, and I told of what I heard from my
sister who lives in the Galilee in an area with many Arab villages and she
and her husband are every day driving among these villages. They were
worried about the tense situation but what happened was that at the junction
there were Arabs with a basket full of flowers and they gave a flower to
every passing driver. I told this to Meir and said that we and the Arabs
would go on living in one country, we have no choice about that, but that we
have a choice about how we live and how we behave to each other. Also that
he and me will go on living in the same building and I hope we can go on
being good neighbors as we had until now. He did not react further, I hope I
did get to him at least a bit. Today there are going to be all over the
country demonstrations of Jews and Arabs together, with the slogan.`We stand
together against racism and hatred`.

Alarm two minutes ago. Very prolonged alarm and one of the explosions was
very nearby. Meir was not there in the staircase though his wife was, she
was talking in Russian with other neighbors. They are a curious couple, he
is from Morocco and she from Russia, he is very fat and heavy and she very
thin and delicate, but they seem a very harmonious couple. Rivka, who lives
one floor below us, said : `Whatever we do to them, they still continue!`.
She was of course very angry with the Palestinians, but I felt there was a
kind of grudging admiration. What this means is if the price of a quick
ceasefire is for Hamas to show itself intimidated, they are not willing to
pay the price.

There were two more alarms soon after the first. Since then, nothing more in
our part of the country though it continues in the south. But they might do
it again in the evening. After the third alarm we went back to our
interrupted meal and could still worry about whether the new avocado which
we started would be good or over-ripe. (It was over-ripe). Of course, during
all the wars in history people continued their daily life, how else?

There were some interesting exchanges during the second and third alarm.
Rivka said: `For a hundred years they are trying to return here. Don`t they
understand we will never let them?`. I said to her `They just want to have
their own state`. She said `They have twenty Arab states to go to, we have
only the one Jewish state!`. I could have tried to explain why the
Palestinians don`t really feel at home in the Arab countries but it would
have been futile. Beate said to her `Their missiles might be better next
time`, to convey that Israel might not always have military superiority.
Rivka did not respond to that. Meir burst out `I wish we had Sharon back, he
would have just smashed them and not cared what the world said!`. Of course
Meir was thinking of the old Sharon who smashed into Lebanon in 1982. He
seems to have wiped from his memory that in 2005 it was Sharon who had
pulled the army out of the Gaza Strip. Then Meir said `I used to go to an
Arab restaurant every Saturday, but now I will never go there again.
Never!`. But I think that in a few months from now things will calm down,
and he will go back there and the Arab waiters will welcome him back as a
valued old client and he will make light hearted jokes with them and this
nasty time will not be entirely forgotten but will recede into the
background.

There was a phone call from Simone, a childhood friend of Beate from
Holland, to ask if we are OK. Another friend of Simone had called her to
tell that the latest missile fell just two houses away from her home in
Ramat Gan. The friend was not hurt but it was very frightening. We later
heard that a lonely man who was living in a one-room apartment was killed.

Of course it is completely random, no one can tell where the next one will
fall. Israel is strongly condemning Hamas for using such inaccurate weapons.
On the other hand, Israel very much does not want Hamas or Hezbollah to
have accurate missiles which could be directed to precise targets such as
the Army High Command in Tel Aviv or the Dimona Nuclear Pile. Netanyahu
said that Israel regards accurate missiles as a grave threat and would
preemptively bomb any facility where missiles are made accurate. Demanding
firmly that your enemy will not have accurate weapons and then condemning
him for using inaccurate weapons is a bit hypocritical...

Such a simple daily thing as providing catfood and water to the street cats
who live outside our home became suddenly a bit dangerous adventure. I was
all the time listening for an alarm and ready to run, but nothing happened,
just the cats meowing impatiently for their food like every day. Cats are
happily unaware of the wars which humans make with each other. Of course
cats have their own territorial wars, but they hardly ever kill other cats.
They shout at each other, at worst they wound each other a bit.

Anyway, we are not sure whether or not to go to the Tel Aviv demo this
evening. The bust to Tel Aviv is between half an hour and three quarters,
depending on traffic. If there is an alarm the bus stops and you have to run
into the nearest house. If there is no house nearby or the front door is
locked, you should lie down on your face and cover your head with your
hands. In some cases covering your head with your hands can make the
difference between being severely wounded or being killed on the spot.
Anyway, we might go with a taxi, that would reduce the time of danger. This
is not the time to save money. Meanwhile I go back to the computer to spread
the message as widely as I can.

At the demo. Knesset Member Ayman Udeh of the Hadash Communists now
speaking: “This is not about Jews against Arabs. It is about supporters of
occupation and oppression and racism against supporters of peace and
equality. Every crisis is an opportunity. We are in a very deep crisis but
this is an opportunity to build a strong bloc of Jews and Arabs against
Fascism and Racism!”. Participants cry out `They will not pass! Fascism will
not pass!`

Knesset Member Ibtisam Mara`ana of the Labor Party says `We women are trying
to build a structure of peace and understanding. There is a bunch of very
nasty men who stand for war and bloodshed and revenge and hatred who try to
destroy everything we build`. She is a radical Arab Feminist who is married
to a Jewish activist. In the past a Labor Party Knesset Member would not
have been in such a rally. But the Labor Party moved very much to the Left
in the past year, at the same time that it very much shrunk. Labor was in
very real danger of disappearing until Merav Michaeli who is an outspoken
Feminist took it over and gave the party new life. Ibtisam Mara`ana is the
most radical of the Labor Party New Team. She apologized to the men in the
audience and made clear that her very sharp words about the War of Men led
by nasty warlike bloodthirsty men were not directed at the men in this rally
who are highly appreciated partners in the struggle.

The rally ended with very loud chanting of “The People Demand a Ceasefire!`,
which is not really true. The people in general accept the government’s word
that “It must go on a bit longer”. But I think the people will be relieved
when it is over.

Now we are eating Crepe a la Bratagne. It is one of our favorite eateries
and it has a good shelter if a new alarm comes. The rally by the way was
very near an air raid shelter. Fortunately it was not needed.

Late in the night: There was an intensive rocket barrage just now. As
expected. At 10:00 Hamas announced `A two hours break in the curfew of Tel
Aviv, until 12:00` - people of Tel Aviv `allowed` to go free in the street
until 12:00 and then the `curfew` will resume. Exactly the terms which the
army is using, when imposing a curfew on a Palestinian town. We used that
time to get home from Tel Aviv, without incident. And then right on
schedule, shortly after Midnight the alarm sounded and there was a very long
string of explosions. Some very near.

There was a very big change of attitude among the neighbors since the
morning. Meir was saying all the time `They are now going to shoot a lot, a
lot. They said they will do it and they keep what they promised`. And RIvka
said `Yes, I did not go to bed, it was useless when they said they will
shoot after Midnight`. I felt that in just the 12 hours since the morning
they had lost much arrogance and gained respect for Hamas. Not liking them ,
of course, the enmity is unchanged, but respect for the fact that Hamas is
announcing in advance when and where they will strike and the army with all
their firepower can`t stop it. Rivka suddenly said that every bullet has an
address on it, if it is your fate to die you will die and if you are fated
to survive you will survive. She told how her late husband was a soldier in
the War of Attrition, the nearly forgotten war on the Suez Canal in 1967-
1970. An artillery shell landed near him and killed seven other soldiers and
he was not scratched. Not physically, but terribly shocked. Especially
since he was a medic, he was supposed to help others - but there was no
helping these seven, they were all dead. She said that for several months he
did not leave his room and was all the time saying `I could not help them, I
could not help them, I could not help them…`. I knew her husband for some 15
years, he was a nice friendly old man, long past his time as a soldier when
I met him. I never heard this story and I think nobody else ever heard it.
Without the special circumstances of this evening I don`t think she would
have ever told it. There was a moment of companionship there in the
staircase, of really being a community. The political differences did not
disappear but for the moment they just did not matter.

Now we are back home and back to our classical music and watermelon. This
evening we took the Goldberg Variations of Bach played by Glenn Gould. The
possibility of a new alarm is no longer disturbing. If it happens we will
just go out again into the staircase and afterwards go back to Bach
(assuming of course it does not land here...)

I wonder how all these social dynamics would develop if this war lasts a
month or two or more. But i certainly do NOT want to find out!

The music is over, we go to bed very late. Good night!

Postscript: It still goes on and on, in fact the number of Palestinians
killed and wounded per day is at its worst. The government and army still
say no ceasefire, need more days to destroy the Hamas tunnel system etc etc
etc. Still, establishment people start speaking of “an exit strategy” and
wondering if the government has one, and there is the ongoing suspicion of
Netanyahu’s motives. This war crisis helped him scuttle the Alternative
Government which was on the verge of being formed, but he is no nearer
forming a government of his own – every day of war is one more day away from
his sharp political predicament. And there is General Kochavy, the Army
Chief of Staff, who since assuming his post spoke about “wanting wars to end
with a victory, not with a draw” and having now to face the situation that –
like in all the wars waged by his predecessors – Hamas would be able to go
on shooting rockets until the last moment. There were times in Israeli
history with the anomalous situation that the politicians were more gung-ho
than the army generals – but it seems that Israel is becoming more normal in
this respect.

There are mounting pressures – huge demonstrations for the Palestinians in
London and other European capitals, Italian dock workers refusing to load an
Israeli ship, more voices in the US Congress critical of Israel than at any
previous time. The footage of children being taken – some alive, others dead
- out the ruins of bombed buildings in Gaza speaks eloquently; it was even
shown on Israeli TV, which only rarely shows the war from the Palestinian
side. There were very sharp words indeed from American commentator John
Oliver. Talking about “collateral damage” and about Israeli “efforts to
prevent harm to civilians” can’t overcome the impact of this direct
photographic evidence. And the bombing of the Gaza high rise housing the
offices of AP and many other TV networks was a major blunder, as senior army
officers and cabinet ministers admit (off the record). And many of the
soldiers and politicians are afraid of a bigger blunder, one shot or bomb
too far which would go astray and cause a real massacre for the whole world
to see. It happened before.

Politicians find comfort in the expressions of support for Israel made by
the governments of Austria, Hungary, The Czech Republic and Slovakia. Is
Israel trying to revive the Habsburg Empire?

For two days already, we in Metropolitan Tel Aviv are living undisturbed by
alarms - while so many are descending deeper into Hell. Hamas threatens to
shoot at Tel Aviv again if more Gazan civilians are harmed. Last night I had
to take a taxi for a short distance in Holon. When I got in, the driver
asked me, in a completely matter of fact tone “Did Hamas say that would
shoot tonight?”. In such times, the unbelievable becomes daily routine.

And what can we do about all this? Not so much. The Gush Shalom statement,
composed last night, reads

Turning `collateral damage` into war crime

`Our bombing of Gaza is moral`
Cried the Prime Minister
As if he cares.

`We are doing all
To avoid harm to civilians`.
So he said.
Well, perhaps we try.

But when you drop
450 bombs in half an hour
Weighing a whole tonne each
In a densely populated urban area
There is no way to avoid
Killing women and children,
In far greater numbers
Than the Israelis
Killed by Hamas rockets.

Going on with such bombings
Day after day
Turns `collateral damage`
Into war crime.

Enough is enough
And more than enough.
It is high time
To stop this madness.

So we are spreading it as far and wide as we can with the means at our
disposal. How much of an effect it will have? Realistically, not very much.

It is going to end. Hopefully, it will end already this week. Even so, for
many people who are now living and breathing, it will come too late.

Links to the latest articles in this section

Refusing the war! Demonstration today, Thur. Apris 24, at 7.30 pm, Habima Square, Tel Aviv

Saturday night protests: No to Netanyahu`s war!