Along the Border With Gaza Life Is Anything But Routine

It’s been a little more than a week since they returned home to a mostly quiet border. They’re back in their gardens, their kitchens, their places of work. The routine and the out of the ordinary are known to them. Muffled noises from beneath the ground very likely come from another tunnel from the Gaza Strip being built by Hamas. The pounding sound at night is the exchange of artillery fire between ISIS and the Egyptian army. A red alert means you have 15 seconds, or less, to seek shelter before a rocket launched from Gaza may land in your backyard, or worse.

“They” are eight women from the Eshkol Regional Council of Israel who spent two weeks in the New York metropolitan area and Washington, DC. The Eshkol district encompasses 32 communities housing 14,000 residents on 190,000 acres east of the southernmost 40 kilometers of the Gaza Strip and seven miles along the northern Sinai border with Egypt. 

They came from kibbutzim and moshavim as guests of Shalom Yisrael, a Westchester, NY-based organization celebrating its 30th year of bridging connections between Israeli citizens and their American counterparts. During the first 23 years of its existence, Shalom Yisrael (then known as Zahal Shalom) sponsored wounded veterans and civilians. For the last seven years guests of the organization have been women who serve as trauma care first responders and security officials in their respective home towns.

How do you react when a door slams shut? If you’re like most people, you’re startled. You turn toward the sound, quickly ascertain the origin of the noise, and go on with your life.

If you lived in the Eshkol region, the bang of a sharply closed door might engage a condition we in the United States have come to recognize as PTSD. Post traumatic stress disorder. Years of rocket barrages from mortars and missiles launched from the adjacent Gaza Strip, coupled with almost nightly artillery clashes between the Egyptian army and ISIS in the nearby Sinai Peninsula trigger rapid heart beats and feelings of “we’ve been here before.” 

“Before” means a time of war, last experienced full time two summers ago. 

“In the first morning that I woke (in Westchester),” said Yehudit, a 46-yer-old responsible for the administration and security of her moshav, Yated, “I heard strange sounds, sounds that I had forgotten, sounds that I had forgotten from my past. And when I paid attention I understood that these were the sounds of the tree leaves and the sounds of birds. And I heard the sounds of silence and tranquility.

“Suddenly I was really frightened because I understood that I am already used to waking up to the sounds of explosions. And that’s a bad sign.”

Their everyday life has been transformed. Truck traffic has vastly increased on the region’s roads from deliveries of building material to Gaza, though the flow recently has been tightened because of Hamas’ tunnel building activity (http://nyti.ms/27J4IF6).

No one wants to be caught in an embarrassing situation in case of a rocket attack, so short showers are taken. Before entering the bathroom a towel and robe are laid out just in case a quick exit is required. 

Nira’s 13-year-old son chooses to sleep in the family’s safe room rather than his own bedroom. Not every residence has a safe room. The government supplies a safe room for homes within four and a half kilometers of Gaza. Those living further away have safe rooms only if they pay for them on their own, at a cost of roughly $10,000. In those areas, the only government-provided security is a shelter for kindergarten children. 

Safe rooms are needed because the heralded Iron Dome missile defense system, jointly developed by Israel and the United States, cannot protect them. They live too close to Gaza, so close, in fact, they can see Hamas training exercises. 

They long for a return to a time when they interacted freely with the citizens of Gaza. They are convinced Gaza residents want to live in peace as well, but Hamas does not let them. Before Hamas took control of the strip, many Palestinians worked on their farms—60% of Israel’s produce is grown in the region. Israelis had their cars repaired in Gaza and bathed on its beaches. 

Israelis have a reputation of being a stubborn people. Even during the 2014 conflict, when one-third of all the rockets that landed in Israel fell in the Eshkol region, elderly citizens in the district refused to abandon their homes. Instead, every day they came to the senior center. 

The Shalom Yisrael guests displayed their own mettle. 

“When I landed in New York two weeks ago,” said 58-year-old Yael of Kibbutz Urim, the head of occupational therapy at the senior center, “the weather was pretty cloudy, raining, and I thought to myself, if I can get used to missiles I can get used to rain. 

“But to missiles and noise of war you never get used to, and you get used to rain because the rain grows a future, and noise of war destroys the future for peace.”

Wherever they went, from visiting high schools to meeting with U.S. Representatives Nita Lowey, Eliot Engel and Susan Davis, the same question kept surfacing: “Why do you continue to live there?”

The answer, Yehudit said on her last night in Westchester, could be found in a poem written by Ehud Manor:

I have no other country

even if my land is aflame

Just a word in Hebrew

pierces my vein and my soul—

With a painful body, with a hungry heart, 

Here is my home.

Living With Tension Along a Troubled Border

They are flying Sunday night back to their homes 6,000 miles away, both literally and figuratively, home from the two-week respite they have enjoyed in America to their tension-filled existence living next to people who would like nothing better than to see them and their families breathe no more.

They will be returning to Israel, to kibbutzim and moshavim in the Eshkol region adjacent to the Gaza Strip where every day includes the unknown. Will a rocket be fired at them? Will terrorists emerge from an as yet undiscovered tunnel? And, the newest concern, will a sniper snuff out a life from a distant, camouflaged perch?

Each year for the past six, Westchester-based Shalom Yisrael has brought to America eight women engaged in first responder trauma care activities from the settlements near Gaza (for 23 prior years wounded veterans of the Israeli Defense Force and injured civilians were guests of the program). As with the previous five groups, this year’s crop of valiant women possess no extraordinary powers. Except, maybe, a determination to withstand the pressure and tension of living in a free-fire war zone simply because…it is their home. They are no more stoic about it than the residents of the canyons around Los Angeles who endure mudslides and fires only to rebuild. Or those along our shorelines who clean up after hurricanes ravage the coastlines they love. Or the hearty Plains people of tornado alley who emerge from underground shelters to resurrect their lives. It is their homes, and though Mother Nature might be the bane of most American disasters, fellow human beings traumatize the Israelis.

A two-year-old study on post traumatic stress disorder, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that Israelis, in general, recover from catastrophic events much quicker and easier than other nationalities, most likely because every day they are confronted by terror, or, at the very least, the thought of terror. If so, then the Shalom Yisrael guests would be at the top of the charts.

Fifteen seconds. If they are fortunate that is how long they have to seek shelter once an alarm sounds, if it sounds at all, before a deadly rocket lands. Some can run to government-funded safe rooms in their homes. Others, those living more than four and a half kilometers from Gaza, have safe rooms only if they paid for them on their own, at a cost of roughly $10,000. In those areas, the only government-provided security is a shelter for kindergarten children.

The Eshkol district, home to some 14,000 residents in 32 communities, important to Israel as the provider of 60% of the country’s produce, has suffered more rocket attacks than any other region. The vaunted Iron Dome defense system cannot protect them. They are too close to Gaza. Eshkol shares a 24-mile border with the Gaza Strip and a seven-mile border with Egypt.

And yet, like those before them, this year’s Shalom Yisrael guests would welcome a return to the pre-Hamas status of Gaza, a time when commerce and people flowed more freely across the border, when Palestinians worked in their fields, when they visited the beaches along the Mediterranean. They are less strident than the Israeli government and its leadership. 

It’s warm in the Middle East. As the climate heats up so often do cross-border tensions. Shortly after the 2014 Israeli women returned to their communities along the Gaza Strip all hell broke loose. Missiles and rockets dropped from the sky. From beneath the dirt of their farmlands terrorists emerged from tunnels. Among the visitors from Eshkol this year was the widow of one of the last two Israelis to die in the 2014 conflict, casualties of a rocket barrage one hour before the cease fire was to go into effect. Pain is still evident within her. But she perseveres. As does Israel. 

The links below are to previous posts about visits sponsored by Shalom Yisrael and Gilda’s and my visit in 2011 to the Sha’ar Hanegev region along the northern edge of the Gaza Strip: 

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2014/05/ordinary-lives-lived-by-extraordinary.html

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2013/05/building-community-in-eshkol.html

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2012/05/rocket-women.html

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/07/gazing-over-gaza.html

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/05/well-deserved-rest-relaxation.html 

Reflections on Another Mideast War

You might be wondering why I have mostly refrained from commenting on the conflict in the Gaza Strip, restricting my posts to first-hand accounts from either Israelis or American visitors to Israel. 

Even in my private life I have resisted round-the-clock immersion in the war. It’s just too depressing to spend all my waking hours, as others seemingly are doing, monitoring news feeds when everyone knows Israel will not be defeated.

Israel’s fate was not always a certainty. On June 6, 1967, I spent harrowing hours with friends at the Knight House “fraternity” table in the Brooklyn College cafeteria, not knowing if Egypt and Syria and their allies were on their way to conquering Israel. The Arab media were trumpeting huge successes, tank columns driving on Tel Aviv. 

I had particular reason to be apprehensive. My sister Lee was nearing the end of her second year in Israel studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Our family had no idea where she was. Was she safe? 

As the world soon learned, Arab media were not to be trusted. Israel had achieved a stunning, lightning victory in the Six Day War. In her own way, Lee contributed by volunteering to pack foodstuffs for the troops. 

Three years ago Gilda and I visited communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip, the ones that, until the recent onslaught of long-range missiles aimed at larger population centers, were the targets of spontaneous and repeated attacks by, thankfully, often inaccurate Katyusha and Qassam rockets. Trauma, however, does not need a direct hit to be experienced. 

We were the guests of 16 trauma care first responders from the Sha’ar Hanegev area who had been brought to New York in 2010-2011 for two weeks of rest and relaxation by Shalom Yisrael (24 others came from the Eshkol Regional Council over the last three years). 

They have no rest or relaxation now. As long as the tunnels from Gaza into Israel exist, no Israeli, particularly the residents of the Sha’ar Hanegev and the Eshkol region, will sleep comfortably.  

When I do check Facebook and see the postings, I am surprised by some of the deeply hidden stories that surface. Here are a handful I found fascinating:

Do you know who Ismail Haniyeh is? He is often named as the Hamas leader in Gaza. Israel fired a missile at his home on Tuesday. But that’s not why I bring his name up.

Turns out three of his sisters live in Israel and are Israeli citizens. Moreover, several of their children have served in the Israeli army (http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/07/27/hamas-leaders-three-sisters-live-secretly-in-israel-as-full-citizens/).

Here’s another interesting fact about Haniyeh. Last fall, when his granddaughter was critically ill with an infection of her digestive tract, he sent her to Israel for treatment (http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/24258/Default.aspx#.U88LM4kmfDs.email).

I got a chuckle out of this recently revealed fact. The British newspaper The Telegraph reported that the photograph of the perfect Aryan baby chosen by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was, in fact, a picture of a Jewish infant! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10938062/Nazi-perfect-Aryan-poster-child-was-Jewish.html

Finally, for those who cringe and despair at deaths of civilians in Gaza, it is important to keep in context several points. First, the voters of Gaza chose Hamas, knowing full well its commitment to the destruction of Israel and all Jews. Second, instead of building a productive land, Hamas invested in tools of war. Instead of building schools, hospitals and, yes, bomb shelters, Hamas built a network of tunnels to kill and terrorize Israelis. Third, there is no equivalency in war. Civilian Israelis haven’t been killed because Israel invested in defensive measures, such as safe rooms and the Iron Dome missile defense system. It seems sometimes the world is waiting for one of Hamas’ missiles to penetrate the Iron Dome and kill masses of Israelis. Only then would they, possibly, feel Israel has been justified in curbing Hamas’ power. Fourth, even as the war progressed, Israel continued to send food and other supplies into Gaza. What other country at war has been quartermaster to its enemy? Fifth, though the inevitable mistakes and tragedies of war have occurred, Israel has been more careful and considerate than any other adversary would be, warning Palestinians to vacate target areas. 

On Monday, Theodore (Dutch) Van Kirk died. He was the navigator and last surviving crew member of the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He died nine days before the 69th anniversary of the catalyst that hastened the end of World War II.

Did we have to drop the bomb? I’ll leave that answer to historians and to your own conscience. But here’s what Van Kirk had to say about war. Read it knowing what Hamas thinks about Israel and Israelis: 

“We were fighting an enemy that had a reputation for never surrendering, never accepting defeat.  It’s really hard to talk about morality and war in the same sentence.”

“Where was the morality in the bombing of Coventry, or the bombing of Dresden, or the Bataan Death March, or the Rape of Nanking, or the bombing of Pearl Harbor? 

“I believe that when you’re in a war, a nation must have the courage to do what it must to win the war with a minimum loss of lives.” 

Stairway to the Animal Kingdom and a Letter from Israel

I've often fessed up I hate exercising. But I do take advantage of natural exercise moments, such as taking the stairs rather than the elevator. After leaving the car on the fifth floor of Gilda's self park regular garage at Mount Sinai hospital Wednesday afternoon before a doctor’s appointment, I chose to walk down the stairs. Halfway down I saw an animal curled up on the landing. Furry. Grey with a black streak down its back. Pointed snout. And a black Zorro mask across its eyes. He, or she, took one look at me and went back to sleep.

I quickly retreated away from this slumbering raccoon and jumped on the elevator. I advised the garage attendant to call the police or animal control squad. It took him a while to understand me. He said he’d call housekeeping. A few blocks later I stopped in the hospital’s garage security office and told them about the raccoon. They, too, promised to call the proper authorities. When I returned to the garage 90 minutes later the attendant said no one had shown up. I did not go looking to see if the raccoon was still napping.

At what age do we transfer authority? Here’s the thing. When visiting with the sleep apnea specialist Wednesday I couldn’t stop thinking how young he was. Probably no older than our son Dan, who is 35. I’m used to conferring medical authority on doctors older than me, or my age, or at least in their fifties. But as I age—and I expect to continue to do so for decades—doctors I see will be getting progressively younger. I’ll have to train myself to trust them.

I have the same questions concerning education experience and gravitas when I see young, talking heads dissecting world events on television. Or when their cohorts talk business, except when it comes to technology. When I watch a baseball game the players don’t seem as young as they really are. Again most of them are younger than Dan, but they look older. Or am I merely transferring my age bias to my brain and making them appear older?

By the way, I’ve decided to do an in-hospital, overnight sleep apnea test rather than an in-home test. My young doctor convinced me the results would be more useful.

Letter from Israel: Gilda's cousin lives in Kvuzat Yavne, a kibbutz about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Gaza Strip. Her kibbutz is among the most successful, with a varied economy including the canning of pickles and olives that she helps manage. Here's an excerpt from an email we received Wednesday:

“So much has happened and is happening. We average 2-3 missile attacks a day. Our homes have no secure rooms but the rest of the kibbutz is covered. Some of the missiles have hit pretty close. The Iron Dome is a miracle and has been shooting most rockets out of the sky. The fallout from this is very dangerous in itself but less than direct hits.

“Two new ways to get around: 1) always plan where to run for cover if you’re caught outside when an air raid siren goes off; 2) when driving, always have the radio on loud so you can hear when they break in with an announcement of an attack. If it’s by you, stop the car, get out and take cover.

“Our son Eldad was called up during the first few days and is now on the border with Gaza keeping watch to prevent infiltrations . Much as it is worrying, those that have family members fighting  inside Gaza have even greater fear.

“To those who attended Eldad and Tehila’s wedding on Kibbutz Saad (which Gilda and I did, along with her brother, sister and her husband), the kibbutz (on the border with the Gaza Strip) today is an armed camp. Heavily shelled. There were two direct hits in front of the dining room right where the chuppa was. The elderly, children, and most of the residents have moved to safer surroundings. 

“We have 60 seconds to make it to shelter; they have basically zero. Funny how there were once emergency plans to evacuate Saad to us…

“All the kibbutzim around the Gaza Strip are empty of almost all their civilian residents. It’s impossible to live with constant shelling and bombardments. The fear of tunnels has turned the whole area into a nightmare. Shelling is something you learn to live with, no matter how nerve racking, if you have a safe room to take cover in. Infiltrating terrorists through a tunnel under your home is a whole new ball game. Every evening now we hear the numbers of the soldiers killed over the last 24 hours.”

Ordinary Lives Lived by Extraordinary Women

They live ordinary lives. Three are special education teachers, one an elementary school instructor. Another practices Chinese medicine. One’s a retired nurse. A seventh a midwife. The eighth is an occupational therapist. They are women of modest professions, living modest, ordinary lives.

And then an airplane or a helicopter flies overhead and they wonder if an attack is imminent. Or they hear, make that feel, an explosion that rattles the foundation of their homes. Was it a rocket or the vibrations from a powerful Egyptian charge meant to destroy an underground Palestinian tunnel from the Gaza Strip into the Sinai?

They're home now, back on the kibbutzim delicately nesting next to the southern tip of Gaza, on the border with Egypt. For the two weeks spanning the end of April and the beginning of May, these eight women came to America as guests of Shalom Yisrael. Why? For some well-deserved rest and relaxation, for aside from their ordinary day jobs, they are trauma care first responders when the ordinary lives of their fellow kibbutzniks become anything but ordinary when bombs and rockets hail from across the border. 

Most everyone who met them, including Congresswoman Nita Lowey, wanted to know why they lived on the edge of peril, why not in a more secure spot in Israel. The Eshkol Regional Council from which they come is the most targeted land area in Israel. When rockets are launched from Gaza, they have perhaps 15 seconds to seek shelter, assuming an alert is sounded. They are too close to Gaza to be protected by the Iron Dome missile defense system. Houses are being retrofitted with safe rooms. 

Yet, they do not dream of leaving. Their response echoed what we have heard time and again from people in our own country. Their choice is no different than that made by Americans living in tornado alley or along the Gulf Coast ravaged annually by hurricanes or the Rockies that even in the second week of May was treated by Mother Nature to globs of snow. Or those who warily watch waters rise above levies each year to wash away homes. They live there because it is their home, whether they grew up there or recently relocated. It is beautiful, they said. With a real sense of community. That helps explain why the population of the Eshkol region has grown 35% over the past five years. 

The region is important agriculturally. Sixty percent of Israel’s produce is grown in the 32 communities of the council that shares a 24-mile border with the Gaza Strip and a seven-mile border with Egypt. They live 90 minutes south of Tel Aviv but don’t lack for culture. Within the 190,000 acres of the Eshkol Regional Council, its 14,000 residents enjoy 10 art galleries and museums, nature and heritage sites, youth and elderly recreation centers, and a 930-seat cultural hall. 

They strive to live a normal life in an abnormal place. Sometimes, neighbors hear voices from under their homes. Quickly they call the military. Tunnels from the Gaza Strip are a constant concern. It took a few days, but the women soon acclimated to the sounds most Americans take for granted. They realized they didn’t have to look up when a jet streaked overhead, though, to be honest, even Americans twist their heads at the whop-whop whirring of helicopter blades. 

For five years I have been involved with Shalom Yisrael, a volunteer organization that for 29 years has hosted Israelis during the spring, at first soldiers and victims of terror, but for half a decade ladies such as these, women of valor and determination who leave their families when danger erupts to tend to the needs of their community. 

And yet, of the 40 women I have met, I can think of none who does not crave peace and friendship with their Palestinian neighbors, who does not want a return to the time before Hamas seized control of Gaza and put an end to commerce between the two peoples, to visits to beaches reputedly among the most beautiful in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Living as they do on the precipice of conflict, as targets of terror, they are nevertheless dovish citizens of Israel. Not for them are Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s and his cohorts’ hawkish demeanor. They don’t have a solution. They just hope one can be found. 

The ladies returned to Israel last Sunday, Mother’s Day. Normalcy has returned to my routine. What passes for normalcy in the Eshkol Regional Council awaited them. 

The addresses below are links to previous posts about the visits sponsored by Shalom Yisrael and my visit in 2011 to the Sha’ar Hanegev region just north of the Eshkol region: 

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/05/well-deserved-rest-relaxation.html 

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/07/gazing-over-gaza.html 

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2012/05/rocket-women.html

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2013/05/building-community-in-eshkol.html

Building Community in Eshkol

So I asked the woman, what was the news back home? What were the people feeling about the latest incidents?

Silly me. I thought Batia would tell me about reaction to the air strikes by Israel in Syria and the rise in tensions along Israel's borders. Instead, the news of the day, she told me, on the lips of all, was the report that one of the unmarried news anchors of Channel 1 was pregnant. As if that wasn't enough of a blockbuster, an anchor of Channel 2 was involved in a traffic accident. No word on her condition.

Life goes on. Amid the bombs and rockets, life goes on.

Batia was one of eight women brought to the United States by Shalom Yisrael to enjoy two weeks of rest and relaxation  from the daily stress of living and working in the Eshkol Regional Council in Israel, the most frequently attacked district of their country. Situated along the southern portion of the Gaza Strip, hugging the border with Egypt, the Eshkol area is home to some 13,000 residents. It was a mostly peaceful 1,000 square miles when the women chose to live there, not out of any Zionistic fervor but because Eshkol was beautiful and away from the hustle and bustle of city life in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. 

All that changed in 2005 after Israel withdrew from Gaza. After Hamas brutally ousted Fatah, mortar after mortar attack ensued. It was from the Eshkol region that the soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped and held for five years in the Gaza Strip until released in 2011. The incursion into Israel last year by terrorists who stole two armored Egyptian vehicles occurred in the Eshkol region. Last November, when 1,200 rockets landed in all of Israel, 463 fell in Eshkol.

Some of the communities in Eshkol are so close to the border there isn’t time for an alarm to sound. Only the percussion of an exploding rocket or mortar startles residents into defensive activity. It is then that Batia and her colleagues spring into action as first responder trauma care providers. That’s not their primary jobs. Normally, they are social workers and psychologists in schools and welfare agencies, administering to the needs of the area’s population. When explosions break the tranquility of the day—a rocket landed Wednesday—they are transformed into first responder trauma care providers. 

By necessity, their discipline has been mostly self taught. As I wrote last year, when eight other first responders visited as part of the Shalom Yisrael program, the 32 communities of Eshkol (14 kibbutzim, 13 moshavim and five residential communities) are vulnerable in space and time. If their homes are within four and a half kilometers (2.7 miles) of the border they have been outfitted by the government with “safe rooms” built to withstand a direct hit. In communities more than four and a half kilometers from Gaza, no safe rooms are retrofitted to existing homes. The only government funded security is a shelter for kindergarten children. If they are lucky, they have, perhaps, 15 seconds to seek cover. 

Still, life goes on, as close to normal as the Israelis will permit. Tamar, a mother of three boys, 10, 5 and 3, and a 13 year old daughter, demonstrates her resiliency and determination by refusing to give in to fear. She purposely drives the road near the Gaza Strip rather than a route further away from danger. She will not allow the terrorists to alter her lifestyle. 

During their two week stay in New York and Washington, DC, which ended on Mother’s Day, the women visited many cultural and historic sites. And, of course, they shopped. But perhaps their most unique experience involved an aspect of Judaism they had never encountered. They are secular, for the most part, even to the edges of agnosticism because of the smothering influence the religious right has on the Israeli way of life. Their host families brought them to their respective synagogues on Saturdays, where they experienced prayer services far more inclusive and welcoming than any they knew of in Israel. Several received a joint aliyah, an honor of being called up to the Torah. And the Friday before they left they joined a demonstration in Madison Square in Manhattan in support of Women of the Wall, the Israeli group trying to gain equality for women at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Again, they received recognition from the New York community.

Community. Even though Eshkol is bombarded more than any other region, it doesn’t get the foreign press Sderot generates from attacks at the northern edge of Gaza. At times, the residents of Eshkol can feel isolated, alone. But two weeks of sharing and nurturing from heretofore strangers, two weeks of freedom from terror, recharged their internal batteries and revealed to them that their values were shared by a community across the ocean. Life can go on, knowing they are not alone. 

Media Equivalency is No Public Service

We've just concluded one contest wherein the mainstream media felt an obligation to practice equivalency, a bizarre belief that meant it could not point out factual mistakes of one candidate without noting miscues of the other, no matter how egregious the former’s lies were and how insignificant the latter’s were. Brazen and emboldened by a comment from his pollster, Neil Newhouse—"We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers"—Mitt Romney constructed a campaign of lies and innuendoes, confident that for every whopper he told, the mainstream media (I know, I sound sooo Fox Newsy) would soften the correction by pointing out one of President Obama’s misstatements. 

We’ll return to Romney shortly, but first let’s consider another media mess, the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.  Last night CBS News aired video of an Israeli air strike assassination of Ahmed al-Jabari, the military leader of Hamas. It also mentioned other air strikes within the Gaza Strip. Aside from marveling at the precision of the takeout of al-Jabari, the report left the uninformed wondering just why Israel had sent its planes into Gaza at this time. CBS failed to mention the rocket and missile attacks Arab terrorists had launched over the last month, 1,000 in all, according to Israel’s U.S. Ambassador, Michael Oren. Anyone listening to Scott Pelley might have concluded Israel was the aggressor when it simply was retaliating for repeated attacks no nation would tolerate.

CBS was not alone in its under-reporting. NPR’s All Things Considered program today said “fighting began” after the Israeli air strike. Doesn’t NPR think indiscriminate rocket fire amounts to fighting? Do we really think Hamas and its more evil cousins launched those missiles with no hope or expectation they would murder or at the very least maim Israeli civilians? Are we expected to admonish Israel because its military is more precise and effective? 

Tensions along the Gaza frontier could escalate into a mini-war or a full scale affair there, as well as in the north with Hezbollah. I hope not. One thing to remember is that Israel's Iron Dome missile defense is not impervious and by that I don't mean infallible. As I explained six months ago after spending time with trauma care providers who live and work in the border settlements near Gaza, Iron Dome is meant to protect larger cities, such as Ashkelon, Be’er Sheva and Tel Aviv, not the small kibbutzim and moshavs adjacent to the Gaza Strip. 

Residents of the districts near the border have about 15 seconds’ warning of incoming rocket fire to seek shelter. Homes within four and a half kilometers (2.7 miles) of the border have been outfitted by the government with “safe rooms” built to withstand a direct hit. In communities four and a half to seven kilometers (4.2 miles) from the border, no safe rooms are retrofitted to existing homes. The only government funded security is a shelter for kindergarten children. Beyond seven kilometers, everyone is vulnerable. No safety measures are provided.

For a modest depiction of conditions in the border settlements near the Gaza Strip, read this post from May 2011: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/05/well-deserved-rest-relaxation.html

Now back to Romney. We found out Wednesday just how much of a scuzzball the Mittster really is. After disavowing his infamous “47%” comments during the campaign, Romney exposed himself once again as a bigoted, boorish man. In a telephone call to donors and supporters, he explained away his loss as a natural outcome after President Obama gave away stuff to buy votes. Free contraceptives (because college girls like to have sex). Free health care for children until they are 26, (presumably because they like to get sick). Tuition loan relief (because not everyone has millionaires for parents and can afford to pay for college out of pocket). Romney took no responsibility for running a lousy campaign, one that essentially wrote off half the country as “victims” who only want to take handouts from the government (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/romney-blames-loss-on-obamas-gifts-to-minorities-and-young-voters/). 

Though Romney showed he is beyond redemption, GOP governors apparently comprehend the shallowness of his and their party’s appeal to young people, women, Latinos, Asians and Afro-Americans. During a meeting Wednesday of the Republican Governors Association, several rebuffed Romney’s representation of the election results as a gross misrepresentation (http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/11/15/republican-governors-put-blame-on-romney.html). 

Rocket Women

Long time between posts. Sorry about that ...

Just back from what has become an annual three-day trek to Washington, DC, accompanying eight Israeli women who provide social welfare services to their countrymen. A group called Shalom Yisrael sponsors their two-week rest and relaxation tour of New York and Washington. Two were from Jerusalem. They work in a shelter for battered women and children. The remaining six live in the Eshkol region along the border with the Gaza Strip. They are first-responder trauma care providers, along with being targets themselves, as are their families, to the frequent missile attacks from across the border. Over the four day period surrounding the holiday of Purim (March 8), for example, 80 of the 200 missiles landing in Israel fell in the communities of the Eshkol region. A rocket not so long ago landed on the desk of one of the women. Fortunately, it was a Saturday so no one was working. 

Israel has implemented an “Iron Dome” defense against rocket attacks, but what is not widely known is the missile shield is in place to protect larger cities, such as Ashkelon, not the small kibbutzim and moshavs adjacent to the Gaza Strip. Residents of the Eshkol district have about 15 seconds’ warning of incoming rocket fire to seek shelter. 

Here’s another fact gleaned from my time with these brave, resilient women—homes within four and a half kilometers (2.7 miles) of the border have been outfitted by the government with “safe rooms” built to withstand a direct hit (fyi—since the first Gulf War all new residential construction in Israel must include a safe room). In communities four and a half to seven kilometers from the border, no safe rooms are retrofitted to existing homes. The only government funded security is a shelter for kindergarten children. Beyond seven kilometers, everyone is vulnerable. No safety measures are provided.

If you’re as surprised as I was to find this out, you’re in good company. As they related this state of affairs over breakfast in the Congressional Dining Room to Representative Nita Lowey, the ranking Democrat of the State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, she sat with mouth agape. Clearly the success of the Iron Dome, while a source of national pride, has done little to make the lives of these vulnerable Israeli women and their neighbors any safer. 

What also emerged from the breakfast meeting was a suggestion that our government needs to do a better job explaining how foreign aid not only helps other countries but also is a direct contributor to American jobs and our economy. Almost all foreign aid monies must be spent in the United States on equipment, materiel and other goods before being shipped overseas. Foreign aid is a good example of your tax dollars at work, here and abroad.