Small Spaces

I started this post, about recent events in Israel, a few days ago. But as I wrote, I realized I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say. I knew I needed to write about it, I just didn’t know, honestly, what my point was going to be. (Reassuring words from a blogger, no?) (And I really do have another 1,300-word document on this topic, full of thoughts with no point. Welcome to my life.)

 

So, in lieu of a thesis, I’ll just tell you what’s been going on. There has been a lot of crappy, saddening, frustrating stuff happening around here. In the past month, there have been four random terror attacks on Israelis—literally random, the four perpetrators acting alone, not with each other and not as part of a wider terror organization like Hamas—leaving three men dead and one little girl injured (wounded via a gunshot from crude homemade gun, while she was playing in her yard.) An off duty soldier was lured to a Palestinian coworker’s house (they worked in a restaurant together), where the killer strangled the soldier and dumped the body into a well, then went to take a nap. The killer, whose brother is in an Israeli jail, was hoping to exchange the body and secure his brother’s release. Another soldier, on duty in Hebron, wasfatally shot by a sniper. And the latest victim, a retired IDF officer bludgeoned to death outside his home, may have “just” been a victim of a botched robbery and not a terror attack. The investigation is underway.

 

Then came the news of the terror tunnel—a tunnel starting in Gaza and ending well inside Israel, in a kibbutz called Ein Hashloshah. The point of the tunnel, of course, was to make it easier for Hamas to kidnap soldiers (the tunnel is similar to the one used to capture Gilad Shalit in 2007) as well as carry out terror attacks inside Israel. Even better? We helped make the tunnel! Hamas diverted supplies that Israel sent to Gaza, such as cement, and used them in constructing the tunnel. You’re welcome, guys! Thankfully, the tunnel was found before it was put to use, although Hamas reassures us, “We have the will and the resources to create thousands more like this.” Super.

 

So I felt compelled to write about this slew of horrific news, because it weighed on my mind and my soul. But what to say? Comment on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the peace process? As you probably know by now, political analysis is not my style and certainly beyond my capabilities, which often seem to be limited to “make fun of my kids” and “wonder about stuff.” Write about not becoming desensitized to these atrocious acts? No, I didn’t want to write about that either. And anyway, here, the opposite is often true—we take each loss personally and heavily.

 

So I had nothing left to say, except this one thought: You guys, this country is small! And not only in that we-all-care-for-each-other sort of small. No, I mean, physically, actually, geographically, cartographically, small! This scary stuff is happening in my backyard. Not to a distant people in faraway places. To my people, in my places.

There are haters who are literally a five-minute drive from my home. We routinely travel past red signs warning Israeli citizens not to enter Palestinian-controlled territories, that their lives are at stake should they continue driving. We hike in Ashkelon, a mere stone’s throw (literally) from the rockets of Gaza. I pass Ramallah every time I drive to Jerusalem.

This knowledge, that close by, there are those who hate me and spend their lives hoping to end mine, it surrounds me. I breathe it in, I live it every day. One day, in the not-too-distant future, my children will need to fight it. It’s like living in New Jersey knowing that there are people in Delaware working on your complete and total annihilation. It can feel frightening and sad and hopeless.

 

So.

 

Now that I’ve written these thoughts, I need an ending, of course. I could end on a positive note, find the silver lining, talk about how this makes us stronger, brings us together, makes us appreciate and live life to its fullest.

 

Blah blah blah.

 

But no. The kumbaya-ness will have to wait for another day. Today, I’m going to acknowledge that it can be hard, living here. This country that I love with my heart, mind and soul, that I love fiercely and proudly and deeply—it can be a scary place to live sometimes.