By Steve Whisler
July 20, 2006
Just days before I touched down in Tel Aviv, a Palestinian terrorist, using an underground tunnel, attacked an Israeli Defense Forces outpost, killing two soldiers and kidnapping Cpl. Gilad Shalit, whose whereabouts are still unknown. The same attack also killed two Israeli civilians, one of them an 18-year-old settler.
But this was all happening in the Gaza Strip, where violence is a constant variable, even a year after Israel withdrew from the area. What makes this attack significant, though, is that Hamas, the Palestinian government's majority party and a known terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for the attack just weeks after it called off a yearlong cease fire with Israel.
I expected to be greeted with a wave of uncertainty and anxiety; Instead I found a resilient and brave people, not bracing for the next wave of attacks, but simply living their lives -- going to work, worshipping and playing soccer in the park.
I asked the native Israeli tour guide leading my group of 18- to 26-year-old Jewish students, teachers and lawyers about the attitude of Israelis in such tense times. She told me it was always this way, even the day after an attack -- people riding the bus, eating in the cafes, dancing, laughing, living. When in Rome, I thought ... so I rode the bus, ate in the cafes, danced in the streets and thoroughly enjoyed my trip.
It is with a newfound love of Israel that I have come to worry about the crisis taking place. While I was in Jerusalem last week, the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah unexpectedly launched a wave of rockets into northern Israel, killing eight soldiers and kidnapping two more. I heard the news at lunch with friends, two who live in Israel and one whose boyfriend is in the military. A moment of uneasy silence followed the news, but conversation soon picked up where it left off, and the topic was not brought up for the rest of the meal.
That day, my traveling companion and I decided to stay longer to travel, so we boarded a bus to Tel Aviv. As I read the paper on the bus I found myself humming the tune to the song "Am Yisrael Chai" -- "The people of Israel live."
Perhaps Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of Israel, had the same song stuck in his head as Israel retaliated with a vengeance. The day after the Hezbollah ambush, a columnist in The Jerusalem Post implied that the Hezbollah ambush simply was taking advantage of Israel's diverted attention to Gaza, and warned that a third front of suicide bombers would soon be deployed by terrorist organizations. Sure enough, on Monday morning in Jerusalem a man with more than 10 pounds of explosives strapped to him was making his way through downtown Jerusalem before police stopped him.
Now the focus remains on the Israel-Lebanon border. What Hezbollah did is an "act of war" as described by Olmert and some of the leaders of the G8 Summit in Russia last weekend, but many others are questioning Israel's reaction to the ambush.
Every country has the right to defend itself in the face of unwarranted violence. Clearly, Hezbollah was the first to attack Israel; there is no way around that. Yet Israel finds itself defending its actions. The Israeli army has never attacked a country unless provoked. What would any nation do in Israel's position? What would President Bush do if one of our neighbors, without cause, dropped a barrage of bombs on our soldiers and kidnapped two to use as political bait? I only hope severe repercussions would follow.
To be fair, Israel's missiles have struck Lebanon's capital, Beirut. Israel, recognizing the pain of civilian casualties, has issued warnings and distributed leaflets in residential areas two hours before any air strike. Part of Hezbollah's strategy includes firing their rockets from heavily populated areas so that Israel can't strike back without reaping the political damage of high civilian death tolls. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have shown they are not only willing, but eager, to sacrifice the lives of their countrymen to accomplish their goals -- No. 1 being the destruction of Israel. The innocent bystanders are mere pawns in a twisted game of chess. It is a tragedy on both sides.
The bottom line in all this is the land that Israelis and Palestinians both want. Somewhere, a rationalist is screaming, "Share the land!" But with a problem more than 3,000 years old, practical answers evaporated a long time ago. In talking to my friends still in Israel, the Israeli people seem to be in accordance, united and not willing to jump ship because of a bully.
Certainly this sentiment is warranted, as Israelis have seen these battles before and will see them again as terrorist organizations refuse to accept any peace agreement -- unless it means no more Israel. This is the world we have been born into. All of us are bound to one another because we are human. We have grown together, and we will surely fall together if we do not confront the troubles we face.
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