by Ruthie Blum
The sound of the boom
was so startling that we yelped in unison. Luckily, our taxi driver
swerved only slightly. Had he lost control of the wheel, we would have
crashed into oncoming traffic or flipped over onto the embankment to our
right.
Had he stopped to
regain composure, we would have been at the mercy of our attackers. Not
the ones Israelis had spent the last month guarding against, while our
husbands, brothers and sons were busy eliminating as much of their
technical capability as possible. Not those launching rockets and firing
mortars into Israel from Gaza -- those whose genocidal aggression was
continuing to send us into safe rooms with each wail of an air raid
siren.
No, these were not the
terrorists across the southern border. This particular onslaught was
coming from their brethren in Judea and Samaria, governed by the
Palestinian Authority: a group of Arab teenagers positioned on a hill
above the road, hurling large rocks at cars below.
As our driver sped
ahead, we could see the determined young men pitching their deadly
weapons at the vehicles behind us. If not for their hate-filled
upbringing, their energy and focus would have been channeled into trying
out for a baseball team. But their leader, PA President Mahmoud Abbas
prefers that they hone their skills as assassins.
We called the police.
"Yes," the dispatcher said. "We already know about it." A lot of good that seemed to do.
The crack of the rock
on the side of the vehicle (which, had it landed a few inches higher,
would have smashed the window and hit the driver in the head) was not
the kind of boom we had been expecting when my two friends and I set out
on Sunday morning.
The purpose of our day
trip from Tel Aviv to Sderot and other places had been to visit the
"front lines" of the current war, Operation Protective Edge. A 72-hour
cease-fire that went into effect last Tuesday was slated to end at 8
a.m. on Friday, yet the residents of the south were encouraged to resume
their prewar routines. All of the terror tunnels with shafts into
Israel had been destroyed -- they were told -- and negotiations for a
lasting truce were taking place in Cairo. It's all winding down, they
were assured.
But, of course, it
wasn't winding down. Except for people in the center of the country,
that is, who began flooding the beaches and restaurants which they had
been avoiding up until that point.
In spite of Israel's
tiny size -- or perhaps because of it -- there is a great geographical
divide between towns and cities separated by a two-hour drive. It is
thus that when we mentioned we were going "to the south," everyone
responded with the raise of an eyebrow and an admonishment to "be
careful."
If anything, this
constituted incentive, not deterrence. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah
aim to rid the region of its Jews. It appeared both silly and
short-sighted of Tel Avivians and others to forget that this war is
still raging, just because it is only the children in the communities
close to Gaza who are wetting their beds in bomb shelters.
"Be careful," we were
warned, as though we were embarking on a journey to a far-away foreign
land. This sounded funny to the New Yorker with us, a first-timer in the
Holy Land, who has had longer commutes to New Jersey during rush-hour.
Though interesting and
enlightening, our "fact-finding" mission was uneventful where rockets
were concerned. As providence would have it, red alerts went off in each
location only after we left.
It was not until the
last leg of our tour (after visiting the ancient ruins of the Jewish
town of Susya in the southeast of Mount Hebron and making our way to
Jerusalem) that we were jolted back to the war. Not specifically the one
in Gaza, mind you, but the more comprehensive battle against Israel
that has been waged since before the state's inception.
We were reminded, too,
that Abbas' response to U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the
PA -- during which only Israel made concessions (chief among them the
release of bloodthirsty Palestinian terrorists) -- was to form a unity
government with Hamas in June.
As we returned late
Sunday night from Jerusalem, a rocket salvo flew over Tel Aviv, just
before a new 72-hour cease-fire went into effect, to enable "progress"
in Cairo. On Monday morning, an Israeli delegation arrived in Egypt to
negotiate indirectly with Hamas, via PA representative Saeb Erekat and
Arab League officials.
Among Hamas' many
demands is the opening of its borders for the free flow of people and
goods in and out of Gaza. Translated from Arabic into English, this
means enabling Hamas to rebuild its tunnels and receive fresh supplies
of missiles, rockets and mortars from its benefactors in Iran.
One ostensible way to
ensure that only "humanitarian" materials for rebuilding civil society
in Gaza are able to enter the terrorist enclave is through a third party
appointed as a monitor. Hamas has "consented" to have Abbas handle this
task.
The PA president is not
merely weak, however, and shaking at the knees at the prospect of
having to take on any actual responsibilities; he also happens to side
with Hamas in relation to Israel.
Pressure from the
international community and the Israeli Left will make it difficult for
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reject Abbas, a perceived moderate,
as a guarantor for and upholder of Hamas commitments. But woe is us if
Netanyahu does not withstand it.
On Sunday, my friends
and I were spared rockets and survived a rock. But there is a much
larger bullet to dodge -- having the Boston Strangler keep Jack the
Ripper from obtaining the tools of his craft.
It is from obscenities like this, not visits to Sderot, that we all need to "be careful."
Ruthie Blum is the author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9587
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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