17.1.09
The incident involving the deaths and injuries of the daughters, niece, and other family members of of Dr.
Ez al-Din Abu al-Eish, a peace activist and doctor who has worked in Israel and who has many
acquaintances here, has been reported extensively on Israeli radio and television. It is a miniature
illustration of everything that went on in Gaza: the disproportionate firepower, the inability to verify
beyond a doubt whether militants were present in the building, and the inability of either side to believe
that they are at fault.
Hamas (as well as the good doctor himself) claim there were no militants in the building. Israel claims
there was sniper fire from another storey in the building. The bottom line is that whether or not militants
were present in the building, the incident brings home with glaring reality the fact that you don’t respond
to sniper fire from a civilian dwelling by firing a tank shell at it, because you know beyond a doubt that
when you do so you are going to kill civilians together with those militants. Why not respond to sniper fire
with hand weapons? Why the use of such powerful weapons in such a situation?
Dr. Abu al-Eish had reported the presence of an Israeli tank on his street earlier, and had used his
connections with Israelis to report it and deter it. That was not enough. Now Israelis have something to
contend with besides the numbers, percentages, and nameless civilians who have been killed: we now
have the story of a person’s family, the ambitions of teenage daughters who will never fulfill them,
together with the knowledge that like Qassam rockets, shells do not differentiate between children and
armed fighters, nor do they even differentiate between children of Hamas militants and peace activists:
the kind of people that need to be heard on the Palestinian side, who would bring up their children to
know something different, who would shun Hamas and work for peace.
An Israeli columnist asked this morning: When adults fight, why do children die? The answer is that they
are there in their homes that are now a battleground, because they are deliberately put there by adults,
deliberately targeted by adults, or simply killed out of negligence and abandonment of the red lines that
lie between self-defense and wanton killing.
16.1.09
It appears that to Israel no truce is better than a limited one, and to Hamas demanding what they know
they will not get: open borders through which they can transport more weapons is more important than
stopping the carnage in Gaza. I am reminded of the story tossed around by friends of mine in Habonim,
somewhat altered to fit the situation in the Middle East:
One day a scorpion came down to the bank of the Jordan River and wanted to get to the other side.
Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help
getting across.
"Hellooo Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across
the river?"
"Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?" asked the frog
hesitantly.
"Because," the scorpion replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!"
So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. The scorpion crawled onto the frog's back, his
sharp claws prickling into the frog's soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled
around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly
through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye,
saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his
limbs.
"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! That's not logical!"
"This is the Middle East," replied the scorpion. "Nothing here is ever logical."
And so we continue, choosing what seems to be the easiest way out, but which, in truth, will really get us
nowhere. By us I mean both Israel and Hamas. We continue to fall back on brute force again and again,
when in the long run it will boomerang back at us. And Hamas is personified by bloggers who claim that
Israel is now producing a new generation of suicide bombers in Gaza who will grow up and take their
revenge: meaning that in another 15 years they also will be resorting to the same hopeless, circular
tactics. And we will continue to live with the illusion that if we dump enough bombs on Gaza, we will make
Hamas disappear.
We have long passed any red lines I would draw regarding what we should be doing to ensure the safety
of citizens of the south. Do the benefits of shooting at the UNWRA facility because some Hamas militants
were shooting from it outweigh the repercussions of depriving civilians of still more food and supplies?
Was it that important to prove that we will show no leniency and shoot at any building from which militants
are shooting?
Yet, I am enraged at Hamas for turning Gaza into a huge military camp, for sacrificing its own people for
the sake of its stubborn desire to continue waging what is really a hopeless war, at cowardly Meshal who
sits in Damascus and calls for a fight while children are killed.
However, when push comes to shove, I still consider myself part of the ten or twelve percent of Israelis
who do not back this operation. W (Jordan) and I still write: the friendship is still intact despite the fact
that the rest of the forum seems to have not survived the war very well.
W, Please know that there are a lot of Israelis who think we have long passed the "red line" of what
should have been done in Gaza, and desperately want a ceasefire. At a Machsom Watch meeting on
Monday night one of the women read a letter that had been published that said that if you have a child
who has turned errant and has lost his or her way, you do not abandon him, but do everything you can to
bring him back to the right path. That is what we Israelis are trying to do. It is all we can do, and the fact
that we are Israelis and Zionists does not mean that we condone what has happened any more than the
parent of an errant child condones his actions by still parenting and loving him. We don't agree with what
Israel is doing, but that doesn't mean we stop loving it or reject it.
So all I can do is write like hell, go to the territories each week, sometimes taking bags of clothing to give
to people, talk to people there, and go home broken-hearted. People there see our badges and trust
us, thank us for being there because they know that it does make a difference.
I am beyond tears, W. I am, as in most situations: angry: angry at our government for allowing this to get
to the stage that it has and undermining my faith that Israel will use good judgement, angry at Hamas for
its share in the mess in turning Gaza into one big armed camp, and I'm jumpy since last Thursday's
rockets and don't trust more than a few factors in not deliberately making things worse up here as well.
Hoping for a ceasefire! B
Late last night a fellow member of Machsom Watch (is that a good term, since we are all women?) sent
me a link to a song written by the American songwriter Michael Heart: "We will not go Down" (song for
Gaza. One look at the Youtube clip and lyrics and I felt the familiar internal tug of war between outrage
at what is going on in Gaza and the crass misunderstanding and ignorance of people who have the
luxury of sitting in far away places and placing their judgement upon us without taking the entire situation
into account. Filled with unrest as well as not a small amount of adrenaline, I proceeded to post a
comment on the Youtube clip, and was met with hate comments that were so crude and verbally abusive
that I had to close my inbox to Youtube responses and walk away from the computer. Finally, after a
restless night, I decided to write Michael Heart in a closed email.
Shalom and Salaam Michael Heart,
I am an Israeli peace activist and a musician. Many Israelis such as myself have opposed the operation
in Gaza since its beginnings. As a musician I am aware of the power that music has exerted in various
struggles throughout history. However, I believe the message in your song and video "We will not go
Down" is inaccurate and incomplete.
The video and song broadcast a message that Israel is fighting against the Palestinian people and the
establishment of a Palestinian state, and that the civilians in Gaza are bravely fighting us. The message
of brave people fighting who will not give up is very moving and heroic, but in truth the people who are
really saying "We will not go down in Gaza" are Hamas, and they are doing it at the expense of the
civilians there. The civilians - whom I totally agree are being unjustly killed - are not taking part in the
fighting, but their schools, homes and mosques are being unjustly used by Hamas to serve as hiding
places for their weapons and militants, as well as rocket launching sites from which Hamas shoots at
Israeli civilians.
Having been under rocket fire myself together with my children for years, I can tell you that Israelis have
also had their share of suffering in this conflict . Your song does not mention why Israel came with its
tanks and planes. It came because Hamas has been attacking Israel for years: explicitly attacking civilian
population centers. Would you write a song for Israeli civilians? Their struggle has been no less heroic.
Hamas is led by a leader who calls them to fight to the last man, to "not go down without a fight" - while
he sits safe in Damascus, far from Gaza, ready and willing to sacrifice the civilian population for the sake
of his organization and its goals, which is not a free Palestinian state at all. Make mo mistake: Hamas
will not bring them "Free Palestine" as the signs in the video clip call for, but only more misery and
destruction. Hamas calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Do you really, truly, want Hamas, to
"not go down?" Are you truly sympathetic to their battle cry and their raison d'etre - which calls for us to
be brought down?
Michael Heart, I truly wish you would use your talent and write another song calling for peace in this
troubled area of the world, rather than glorifying defiance on the part of a terrorist organization that does
not represent the Palestinian people. I travel to the West Bank often. I talk to people there. We have
more in common than one thinks. You would do well to put such a song against the background of a
video clip showing both the misery in Gaza and rocket attacks on southern Israel, and use it to call for
peace, for something better for all of us.
Sincerely,
Bracha Ben-Avraham
8.1.09 11:45
It was all too familiar: the whirring of the Katyusha rocket engines over the house, three explosions, and
the dull shaking of the windows and the house, followed by two dogs diving for the "safe spot" under the
desk. As the radio announcer broadcast the news of rocket fire in Western galilee the phone
immediately began to ring. Later this morning the siren started up. I called the radio hotline and was
immediately put through to the studio, but I heard no strikes.
So much for the UNIFIL forces in Lebanon. I sensed immediately that this was not Hezballah, since if they
choose to be foolish enough to open up another front they will launch a far more massive attack of
dozens of rockets across the entire northern border. It was now verified that Hezballah has claimed it
had nothing to do with the rockets at all. Some other Palestinian organization in Lebanon is trying to stir
things up for Hezballah and being used as a proxy. Let's hope for the sake of both sides that no one
gets too trigger-happy.
And through all this, my friend W from Jordan sent an email voicing her concern. Despite all the anger
that has been expressed in the past two weeks, we are still friends.
7.1.08
"Have you come here to take the sun with us here at the checkpoint?" A humorous greeting given to my
shift-mate and me by a reservist lieutenant as we got out of the car at Shaked-Tura. A shepherd passed
by with a herd of goats. An elderly man drives a cart pulled by a donkey through the checkpoint. It is so
quiet that our voices carry over the entire valley. A pastoral scene that is marred by the ugly barbed wire
and cement blocks that mark the place on the road where we have determined that Palestinians traveling
through the seamline zone must stop and be checked. Oddly enough, the sky was clear blue, but this
above photo I took at Shaked-Tura came out looking gray and bleak.
If anyone has to be at the checkpoints, these are the kind of soldiers who should be there. No one - our
soldiers or the Palestinians - wants trouble right now. The soldiers are members of the armored corps.
A member of their unit enthusiastically pounced on the idea of working the checkpoints: "For me, only
checkpoints." Knowing that he would be up to not good, he was told that he could do checkpoints at
home and was not allowed to come. A "hummer" arrives with food for the soldiers. Our lieutenant
conversation mate stops talking, whistles and calls to another to not all sit down and eat at once.
Another dreary day goes by for them. But at least people are being treated decently and not being held
up.
Meanwhile the absurdity of Gaza continues. Hamas utilizes schools and homes as launching pads,
weapons caches, booby traps, and escape tunnels. Hamas commanders walk through the streets
holding a child as a human shield in order to prevent getting shot at...and Israel is blamed for killing
children. The war can be put on hold for three hours each day...sort of like a time out in a sports
competition...and then resumed again, but the fighting cannot be stopped permanently. I think it's time
to call it end game, call in an international peacekeeping force, and say we've both had enough. War is
absurd, but stopping and starting it at will is even more so.
The incident involving the deaths and injuries of the daughters, niece, and other family members of of Dr.
Ez al-Din Abu al-Eish, a peace activist and doctor who has worked in Israel and who has many
acquaintances here, has been reported extensively on Israeli radio and television. It is a miniature
illustration of everything that went on in Gaza: the disproportionate firepower, the inability to verify
beyond a doubt whether militants were present in the building, and the inability of either side to believe
that they are at fault.
Hamas (as well as the good doctor himself) claim there were no militants in the building. Israel claims
there was sniper fire from another storey in the building. The bottom line is that whether or not militants
were present in the building, the incident brings home with glaring reality the fact that you don’t respond
to sniper fire from a civilian dwelling by firing a tank shell at it, because you know beyond a doubt that
when you do so you are going to kill civilians together with those militants. Why not respond to sniper fire
with hand weapons? Why the use of such powerful weapons in such a situation?
Dr. Abu al-Eish had reported the presence of an Israeli tank on his street earlier, and had used his
connections with Israelis to report it and deter it. That was not enough. Now Israelis have something to
contend with besides the numbers, percentages, and nameless civilians who have been killed: we now
have the story of a person’s family, the ambitions of teenage daughters who will never fulfill them,
together with the knowledge that like Qassam rockets, shells do not differentiate between children and
armed fighters, nor do they even differentiate between children of Hamas militants and peace activists:
the kind of people that need to be heard on the Palestinian side, who would bring up their children to
know something different, who would shun Hamas and work for peace.
An Israeli columnist asked this morning: When adults fight, why do children die? The answer is that they
are there in their homes that are now a battleground, because they are deliberately put there by adults,
deliberately targeted by adults, or simply killed out of negligence and abandonment of the red lines that
lie between self-defense and wanton killing.
16.1.09
It appears that to Israel no truce is better than a limited one, and to Hamas demanding what they know
they will not get: open borders through which they can transport more weapons is more important than
stopping the carnage in Gaza. I am reminded of the story tossed around by friends of mine in Habonim,
somewhat altered to fit the situation in the Middle East:
One day a scorpion came down to the bank of the Jordan River and wanted to get to the other side.
Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help
getting across.
"Hellooo Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across
the river?"
"Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?" asked the frog
hesitantly.
"Because," the scorpion replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!"
So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. The scorpion crawled onto the frog's back, his
sharp claws prickling into the frog's soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled
around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly
through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye,
saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his
limbs.
"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! That's not logical!"
"This is the Middle East," replied the scorpion. "Nothing here is ever logical."
And so we continue, choosing what seems to be the easiest way out, but which, in truth, will really get us
nowhere. By us I mean both Israel and Hamas. We continue to fall back on brute force again and again,
when in the long run it will boomerang back at us. And Hamas is personified by bloggers who claim that
Israel is now producing a new generation of suicide bombers in Gaza who will grow up and take their
revenge: meaning that in another 15 years they also will be resorting to the same hopeless, circular
tactics. And we will continue to live with the illusion that if we dump enough bombs on Gaza, we will make
Hamas disappear.
We have long passed any red lines I would draw regarding what we should be doing to ensure the safety
of citizens of the south. Do the benefits of shooting at the UNWRA facility because some Hamas militants
were shooting from it outweigh the repercussions of depriving civilians of still more food and supplies?
Was it that important to prove that we will show no leniency and shoot at any building from which militants
are shooting?
Yet, I am enraged at Hamas for turning Gaza into a huge military camp, for sacrificing its own people for
the sake of its stubborn desire to continue waging what is really a hopeless war, at cowardly Meshal who
sits in Damascus and calls for a fight while children are killed.
However, when push comes to shove, I still consider myself part of the ten or twelve percent of Israelis
who do not back this operation. W (Jordan) and I still write: the friendship is still intact despite the fact
that the rest of the forum seems to have not survived the war very well.
W, Please know that there are a lot of Israelis who think we have long passed the "red line" of what
should have been done in Gaza, and desperately want a ceasefire. At a Machsom Watch meeting on
Monday night one of the women read a letter that had been published that said that if you have a child
who has turned errant and has lost his or her way, you do not abandon him, but do everything you can to
bring him back to the right path. That is what we Israelis are trying to do. It is all we can do, and the fact
that we are Israelis and Zionists does not mean that we condone what has happened any more than the
parent of an errant child condones his actions by still parenting and loving him. We don't agree with what
Israel is doing, but that doesn't mean we stop loving it or reject it.
So all I can do is write like hell, go to the territories each week, sometimes taking bags of clothing to give
to people, talk to people there, and go home broken-hearted. People there see our badges and trust
us, thank us for being there because they know that it does make a difference.
I am beyond tears, W. I am, as in most situations: angry: angry at our government for allowing this to get
to the stage that it has and undermining my faith that Israel will use good judgement, angry at Hamas for
its share in the mess in turning Gaza into one big armed camp, and I'm jumpy since last Thursday's
rockets and don't trust more than a few factors in not deliberately making things worse up here as well.
Hoping for a ceasefire! B
Late last night a fellow member of Machsom Watch (is that a good term, since we are all women?) sent
me a link to a song written by the American songwriter Michael Heart: "We will not go Down" (song for
Gaza. One look at the Youtube clip and lyrics and I felt the familiar internal tug of war between outrage
at what is going on in Gaza and the crass misunderstanding and ignorance of people who have the
luxury of sitting in far away places and placing their judgement upon us without taking the entire situation
into account. Filled with unrest as well as not a small amount of adrenaline, I proceeded to post a
comment on the Youtube clip, and was met with hate comments that were so crude and verbally abusive
that I had to close my inbox to Youtube responses and walk away from the computer. Finally, after a
restless night, I decided to write Michael Heart in a closed email.
Shalom and Salaam Michael Heart,
I am an Israeli peace activist and a musician. Many Israelis such as myself have opposed the operation
in Gaza since its beginnings. As a musician I am aware of the power that music has exerted in various
struggles throughout history. However, I believe the message in your song and video "We will not go
Down" is inaccurate and incomplete.
The video and song broadcast a message that Israel is fighting against the Palestinian people and the
establishment of a Palestinian state, and that the civilians in Gaza are bravely fighting us. The message
of brave people fighting who will not give up is very moving and heroic, but in truth the people who are
really saying "We will not go down in Gaza" are Hamas, and they are doing it at the expense of the
civilians there. The civilians - whom I totally agree are being unjustly killed - are not taking part in the
fighting, but their schools, homes and mosques are being unjustly used by Hamas to serve as hiding
places for their weapons and militants, as well as rocket launching sites from which Hamas shoots at
Israeli civilians.
Having been under rocket fire myself together with my children for years, I can tell you that Israelis have
also had their share of suffering in this conflict . Your song does not mention why Israel came with its
tanks and planes. It came because Hamas has been attacking Israel for years: explicitly attacking civilian
population centers. Would you write a song for Israeli civilians? Their struggle has been no less heroic.
Hamas is led by a leader who calls them to fight to the last man, to "not go down without a fight" - while
he sits safe in Damascus, far from Gaza, ready and willing to sacrifice the civilian population for the sake
of his organization and its goals, which is not a free Palestinian state at all. Make mo mistake: Hamas
will not bring them "Free Palestine" as the signs in the video clip call for, but only more misery and
destruction. Hamas calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Do you really, truly, want Hamas, to
"not go down?" Are you truly sympathetic to their battle cry and their raison d'etre - which calls for us to
be brought down?
Michael Heart, I truly wish you would use your talent and write another song calling for peace in this
troubled area of the world, rather than glorifying defiance on the part of a terrorist organization that does
not represent the Palestinian people. I travel to the West Bank often. I talk to people there. We have
more in common than one thinks. You would do well to put such a song against the background of a
video clip showing both the misery in Gaza and rocket attacks on southern Israel, and use it to call for
peace, for something better for all of us.
Sincerely,
Bracha Ben-Avraham
8.1.09 11:45
It was all too familiar: the whirring of the Katyusha rocket engines over the house, three explosions, and
the dull shaking of the windows and the house, followed by two dogs diving for the "safe spot" under the
desk. As the radio announcer broadcast the news of rocket fire in Western galilee the phone
immediately began to ring. Later this morning the siren started up. I called the radio hotline and was
immediately put through to the studio, but I heard no strikes.
So much for the UNIFIL forces in Lebanon. I sensed immediately that this was not Hezballah, since if they
choose to be foolish enough to open up another front they will launch a far more massive attack of
dozens of rockets across the entire northern border. It was now verified that Hezballah has claimed it
had nothing to do with the rockets at all. Some other Palestinian organization in Lebanon is trying to stir
things up for Hezballah and being used as a proxy. Let's hope for the sake of both sides that no one
gets too trigger-happy.
And through all this, my friend W from Jordan sent an email voicing her concern. Despite all the anger
that has been expressed in the past two weeks, we are still friends.
7.1.08
"Have you come here to take the sun with us here at the checkpoint?" A humorous greeting given to my
shift-mate and me by a reservist lieutenant as we got out of the car at Shaked-Tura. A shepherd passed
by with a herd of goats. An elderly man drives a cart pulled by a donkey through the checkpoint. It is so
quiet that our voices carry over the entire valley. A pastoral scene that is marred by the ugly barbed wire
and cement blocks that mark the place on the road where we have determined that Palestinians traveling
through the seamline zone must stop and be checked. Oddly enough, the sky was clear blue, but this
above photo I took at Shaked-Tura came out looking gray and bleak.
If anyone has to be at the checkpoints, these are the kind of soldiers who should be there. No one - our
soldiers or the Palestinians - wants trouble right now. The soldiers are members of the armored corps.
A member of their unit enthusiastically pounced on the idea of working the checkpoints: "For me, only
checkpoints." Knowing that he would be up to not good, he was told that he could do checkpoints at
home and was not allowed to come. A "hummer" arrives with food for the soldiers. Our lieutenant
conversation mate stops talking, whistles and calls to another to not all sit down and eat at once.
Another dreary day goes by for them. But at least people are being treated decently and not being held
up.
Meanwhile the absurdity of Gaza continues. Hamas utilizes schools and homes as launching pads,
weapons caches, booby traps, and escape tunnels. Hamas commanders walk through the streets
holding a child as a human shield in order to prevent getting shot at...and Israel is blamed for killing
children. The war can be put on hold for three hours each day...sort of like a time out in a sports
competition...and then resumed again, but the fighting cannot be stopped permanently. I think it's time
to call it end game, call in an international peacekeeping force, and say we've both had enough. War is
absurd, but stopping and starting it at will is even more so.
Operation "Cast Lead"
 |  |  |  |  |  |
November 11th - Jitt, Area C November 18th- Near Tapuach December 2nd - Kfar Bidu north of Jerusalem 25 December - Machsom Watch - The Absurdity |
| Recent Blog Entries: |
An Israeli columnist asked this
morning: When adults fight, why do
children die? The answer is that they
are there in their homes that are now a
battleground, because they are
deliberately put there by adults,
deliberately targeted by adults, or
simply killed out of negligence and
abandonment of the red lines that lie
between self-defense and wanton
killing.