The Jewish fight for survival in Sderot
Saturday night begins the Jewish Holiday of Passover. My frenetic pace will take me to Chicago for a few days with the Chicago Cannonball, a quick pitstop in Atlanta, and several days in New York, where I will get to spend time with my grandmother in Brooklyn. Fun and adventure awaits me, even though I cannot go to the original Nathans Hot Dog stand due to the holiday. Nevertheless, I have it easy compared to may others. It is in this spirit that I bring an issue that is near and dear to a couple of people I know.
It has been my pleasure over the last few months to get to know Lisa and Bob Cohen. They are helping to prevent Northern California from descending into further Chaos. Like myself, they are proud Jewish republicans. Yes, these people exist, even in the Bay Area. I have gotten to know them through the Republican Jewish Coalition, and given how gracious they have been to me, I wanted to take a day discussing an issue that is near and dear to them. That issue is the Israeli area of Sderot.
The column below is not my own. It is straight out of the Jerusalem Post.
Israel’s War Against Islamic Extremism Is the World’s War
REMEMBER AND WRITE/CALL YOUR CONGRESSPERSON TO ASK WHAT ARE THEY DOING ABOUT
AND ALL ISRAEL’S AND THE U.S. MISSING SOLDIERS
NOAM BEDEIN, DIRECTOR
REGIONAL NEWS SERVICE FOR SDEROT AND THE WESTERN NEGEV
A PROJECT OF THE SDEROT MEDIA CENTER AND THE SDEROT INFORMATION CENTER FOR THE WESTERN NEGEV LTD
POB 472
1 Histadrut Street
Sderot 80174 Israel
tel. 077 300 2576
Visiting Campuses Abroad:
When you do not know what is happening in Sderot …even terrorism can seem justified
Recently, I spent three weeks traveling in the US, Canada and the UK, making presentations on University campuses, portraying what it was like living in Sderot under constant missile attack from Gaza over the past 18 months.
Throughout the trip, I received daily reports on my laptop about the continuing barrage of missiles fired at my hometown, Sderot
During that 3-week stay abroad, almost 500 missiles hit Sderot, Ashkelon as well as twenty farming communities in the Western Negev region of Israel.
Indeed, the western Negev remains the only region in the entire western world where missiles are fired at a civilian population with intent to kill, maim and traumatize as many civilians as possible.
With such a barrage, you would expect to hear and read about it all over the press.
Instead, newspaper headlines from the Middle East that greeted my student audience every day, from Wellesley to Halifax to London, were…
“ 120 Palestinian were killed over the past two weeks, following a disproportionate response from the Israeli army – following rockets launched towards Israel, with no severe injuries or damages”-
“The Humanitarian crisis is Gaza the worst since 1967”
“Tens of children were killed in the Gaza Strip in these past few days.”
All this brings to mind the media rule of thumb that: “ONLY WHEN IT BLEEDS IT LEADS”, which means that if people are not killed on Israel’s side, there is no news story on Israel’s side..
Meanwhile, no mention was made in any media outlet about the fact that 97% of the missiles that are produced and fired from Gaza are deliberately positioned among the civilian population in Gaza.
In other words, if Israel wants to protect its own citizens by targeting the missile launchers and missile factories, the Israeli army is left with no choice but to inadvertently kill Gaza civilians in order to achieve that purpose.
That unfortunately will happen when missiles are deliberately and strategically placed among civilian population so as to maximize the amount of casualties on the Palestinian side, thus creating an international outcry for Israel to cease fire against Gaza targets, while making Israel look like the bad guy.
International Human Rights statutes state flat out that when a terrorist uses a human shield that is a war crime.
Funny how so many human rights groups and mainstream reporters forget that little detail.
That little detail also eludes the average media consumer.
Once you see dead children from Gaza on the front page of the New York Times- You stop thinking.
You just get mad at the so called “child killers”.
After all, the western mind cannot imagine that any sane person could possibly put a child, a woman or an elderly person in from of him, just to get him killed, but that is exactly what the Palestinian missile launchers in Gaza do every day - sometimes 50-100 times in one day.
We live in a new era, when the only window outside of the personal bubble we all live in, is what we see on the television, read in the newspapers and peruse the internet and it is all cunningly packaged and marketed for the consumer to see only what its producers intend you to see.
The TV image of crowded refugee camps in Gaza, and the sound byte that “this is the worse humanitarian crisis since 1967” plays well.
How many know of the billions of dollars and Euro of Western aid that was squandered in Gaza?
Or the five to ten billion dollars in Arafat’s personal account?
Yet the disproportional media coverage speaks for itself:
“Israel cuts off Gaza’s electricity by 1%-5%”.
Following Hamas’s candle march with their children – with photographs and newsreels of the event which showed clearly that the stores were lit up as were the streets – the Hamas ruled city of Gaza achieved what they set out to do – generated an outraged world opinion which forced Israel to immediately cease the sanctions against them and restore their electricity.
All this goes on while Gaza missiles are fired in the direction of the power plants in Ashkelon, which provides Gaza with 70% of their electricity.
How many people stop to ask why Israel, which “disengaged” itself from the Gaza Strip while uprooting 10,000 of its Israeli civilians and destroying their communities, towns and farms, still had to supply electricity to an entity ruled by a Hamas terrorist organization whose sole purpose is to liquidate the State of Israel?.
This trip was a learning experience, to witness first hand the outcome of what people think when they are constantly fed one side of the story for so many years.
What we hear, what we see, what we read- is what we know… Or what we think we know…
Meeting Jewish activists who are impressed with what they think is the “suffering of Gaza” wearing shirts that proclaim ”Israel Apartheid” .
Reading a chart prepared by Jewish students about how many children have been killed in Gaza, and how many were killed in the “West Bank” according to “objective” UN reports
Watching Jewish students support a photo exhibit on “Breaking the silence”-, as if Israeli soldiers serve in an “occupation” army and commit crimes against humanity.
Experiencing Jewish students attack me only because I’m from Israel, believing Israel doesn’t have the right to exist if it behaves the way it is portrayed by the press.
The meaning of the Simon Wiesethntal Center study became clear, which showed that 40% of Jews under of the age of 35 do not understand why there needs to be an Israel.
In the words of one Jewish campus coordinator, “Often on campuses, hatred against Jews is masked in the politically correct veil of anti-Zionism.” People use the word Zionist or Zionism as a codeword to express anti Jewish sentiment. Asking a professor about the appropriateness of speaking with a group that had members chanting “slaughter the Jews” after a campus rally, he pursued me yelling “Zionist, Zionist, Zionist” in a threatening manner. He knew absolutely nothing about my political beliefs.
There is a lot of controversy around Israeli issues. People like to assume the truth of any conflict lies somewhere in the middle. It is hard for them to understand how one side can be committed to the destruction of the other or that one side does not desire our definition of peace. So rather than learn, they settle with ignorance, and refuse to support Israel.
Natan Scharansky’s observations are also appropriate, “The most sophisticated form of demonization is demonization of the Jewish State. For example, the comparisons of Israelis to Nazis and of the Palestinian refugee camps to Auschwitz – these comparisons which are heard practically everyday within the “enlightened” quarters of Europe - can only be considered anti Semitic.”.
In that context, the reality of Sderot is deemed too political for most Jewish student groups to touch.
Yet this is the first time in 60 years where much of the State of Israel may now fall under the threat of missile attacks from Lebanon and from Gaza, who are now developing missile capability to reach all the way to Ashdod, which will place over half a million Israelis in range of their rockets.
Indeed, a missile fell in Kiryat Gat on the 30th of March.
No family in Israel should suffer the indignity of sleeping in their living room in fear - for the past few years, with parents and children huddling for fear on the lower floors of their homes, so that they can be ready to run for shelter at a moment’s notice.
Imagine a reality where you cannot sleep in an upstairs bedroom because you won’t have enough time in the 15 seconds between the siren and the explosion of a missile to run for cover in a safe room, if the family has safe room .
Without tens of dead bodies, what can we best illustrate the suffering of Sderot?
How about hundreds of nursrey school children in Sderot who now live on tranquilizers?.
What kind of life do they have?
Ziva Dahan, a Sderot resident and mother of four - describes the trauma of her children:
“We don’t get it yet… but don’t worry, our chidren growing up with this kind of reality - they get it.
And Our children’s children who are going to get it hard…”
Let’s face it.
There is no excuse for firing missiles into civilian population, for the express purpose of killing l and traumatizing as many people as possible.
When the IDF kills a civilian, they are sorry about their missed their military target.
When Arabs fire a missile and misses killing a civilian, they are sorry they missed their civilian target..
Children in Sderot are trained to run to a bomb shelter in 15 seconds, while children in Gaza are trained to run on top of the roof top and become a human shield, because it ‘looks good’ in the eye of the camera.’
This is the definition of pure terrorism.
That is because each and every one of these missiles can actually kill.
The damage of any missile can damage anything within the radius of 100 meters -80 feet
With 8554 missiles fired in seven years and few physical casualties, almost every family can tell their story of how a missile fell right near them, causing terrible property damage, yet leaving them alive to tell the horrific tale of a missile that fell close by.
Showing the human face of the families in Sderot, through the media- that is our only window.
This is the only way out of our own personal bubble.
This is what we can do to give hope to this town and to the Western Negev and to the people of Israel..
As Rabbi Abe Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center recently observed, “ Sderot is now on the front line of the Jewish people.
The reality of Sderot continues, like nowhere else in the world.
Have we forgotten our rights to live in dignity, as Jews and as Israelis, in our own land?.
Indeed, the survival of Sderot will depend on the backing that it will receive from the people of Israel.
Anything I could add to this story would not so it proper justice, so today I am content to just provide the bookends. May God Bless the good people of Sderot. They are simply Jewish people fighting for their survival. I pray they succeed in this fight, and that their Passover is as peacable as can be given the situation.
eric
April 18th, 2008 at 9:30 am
The people of Sderot have a happy and peaceful passover, as well as you Eric.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I’m sorry, I’m ahead of myself again.
It should say “may” the people of Sderot…
April 18th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Yeah, Sderot is a perfect microcosmic example of the Israel/Palesitinian problem. I have no clue in the universe how they will ever resolve this. You could push all the Palestinians from Gaza and they’d just go somewhere else to launch their missles. I just don’t see any answer for any of this any time in the foreseeable future. It’s a shame.
JMJ
April 18th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Maybe Carter will think of something.
April 18th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
If Carter could just get that hostage released that would at least be something. But let’s face it, Carter’s not going to accomplish much. The whole mess just seems hopeless. The Israelis are not going to talk to Hamas. The neighboring Arab states are happy with the status quo. The Europeans have completely turned their backs on the whole mess. The US is no longer trusted by anyone. It’s the disaster that just keeps giving and giving - misery.
JMJ
April 18th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I was joking.
I hope they take him hostage
April 18th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Well, I think we’d all prefer he retrieve Shalit if he can. That alone would make the trip worth it.
JMJ
April 18th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Whats this “we” crap.
I would prefer they trade him for Shalit.
I would give one of my fingers to see that
April 18th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Micky, it’s not funny. If Carter could do anything to help release Shalit, we should applaud him.
JMJ
April 18th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Yea, he should offer himself inplace of Shalit.
Then I wouldnt laugh my ass off at him and I would actually take him seriously.
But instead this collosal idiot has done nothing but legitimize Hama and made himself look like an even bigger idiot.
April 18th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Bla bla bla. Why do you guys concern yourselves with Jimmy Carter anyway? What’s the point?
JMJ
April 18th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Us guys ? Dems aint too happy with him either
Look Jersey.
All this shmuck is doing is legitimizing an a terrorist organization and trying to make up for the failures of his first attempt at peace which never worked. I dont care if he came closer than any other president . That failed attempt should of made it clear that its hopeless unless the Palestinians and Hama get their ass kicked good once and for all
Here’s part of a February 2006 speech that Mr. Meshaal delivered at a mosque in Damascus. “Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. Allah willing, before they die, they will experience humiliation and degradation every day,” Mr. Meshaal declared. “Allah willing, we will make them lose their eyesight, we will make them lose their brains.”
And Carter wants to talk with this guy?
Besides that from everything I’ve read Carters first intention is for some kind of agreement for peace, not to free Shalit.
Also, what &^#$%#@^ business is it of his ?
He is undermining our current administrations foriegn policy and going against the wishs of his own party also.
If he could convince all of Hamas to slit their throats then there would be peace.
He went against the wishs of the same government that pumped millions of taxpayer funds to the Carter Center.severed. Why should we support his center when he will not support his government? Huh Jersey ?
Carter need to be sent a strong message, because we have a policy in this country about Hamas, and he is just deliberately undermining that policy, and it’s wrong.
April 18th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Dont know what happened, should say.
He went against the wishs of the same government that pumped millions of taxpayer funds to the Carter Center. Those funds need to be severed.
April 18th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Eric, The sentence, “We live in a new era, when the only window outside of the personal bubble we all live in, is what we see on the television, read in the newspapers and peruse the internet and it is all cunningly packaged and marketed for the consumer to see only what its producers intend you to see.” speaks a sad truth. Most people are mushrooms who thrive on the dark and are nourished by crap. There will always be a majority of these people, and they can be forgiven because of their blissful ignorance. They epitomize the need for our Republic versus a democracy. The dangerous percentage are those who actually have critical thinking skills but are too lazy or stupid to acknowledge results of these critical or constructive analyses. I’ve had some comeuppances in my day and must continuously weigh what I think and see against contradictory information to redefine my opinions. For years I thought Jimmy Carter was a great diplomat who is serving his country much better as an ambassador than he did as a president…and even though his Habitat for Humanity has been a resounding success, his sleeping with the enemy sets a precedent for turning a blind eye to treason.
April 18th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Millard Fuller founded Habitat for Humanity in 1976, Carter ( to my knowledge) had little or nothing to do with the group until 1984…
I think all those who have commented on the particular subject of the Israeli/Palestinians conflict seem to agree there’s no end in sight…( hopefully we’re wrong)…
Israel is trapped…the majority of Palestinians and their supporters want Israel destroyed and are willing to see this through…The Israelis for their part know they’ve got to resolve the situation in the relative near future as militarily occupying the Palestinian Arabs has many prices including the morality of some soldiers who do commit human rights violations against the Palestinians…which happens to in turn undermine the Jewish State…
The Israelis have so much good to offer the world…it’s sad to not see all of their gifts enlighten the rest of us…
I am a firm believer the majority of Palestinian Arabs would greatly curtail their terrorist existence if their enablers in the West would go find another cause to celebrate/protest…Unfortunatley, Mr. Carter can be considered among those ( according to Shimon Peres) whose actions continue to undermine Middle East peace…
April 18th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Brian, Thanks for the note on Jimmy Carter. I could play cheeseball and say I neglected to include “his involvement in” Habitat for Humanity, but the truth is even better - Your correcting me made my earlier point: I’ve read, watched, and heard so much about this involvement, I’ve been channelized into believing it is his program. My apologies!
April 19th, 2008 at 5:30 am
Micky, we pushed for elections, the Palestinians voted, now we’ve got Hamas with power than ever. What a terrible joke. Once again, Middle Eastern affairs bungled by the neocons. We insist they vote, they vote, we refuse to accept the results. It’s all just stupid.
JMJ
April 19th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Jeresy.
What does that have to do with Carters stupidity, his disrespect for his country , the embaressment he’s put upon the country and his sticking his nose in matters that dont concern him?
What do you think would of happened if ther Palestinians didnt vote ?
And since when did they have to vote for Hamas ?
They had a choice and they succumbed to Hamas influences and outside pressures instead of standing there ground. Exit polls released after the polls closed showed that the Fatah party had a narrow lead in the elections.
So then tell me how Hamas ended uo with a larger majority than anyone had thought or could predict would happen?
Does anyone in their right mind actually believe that election was fair ? Gimme a break.
For you to blame the choices middle easterners make on Americans is ridiculous but no surprise since personal responsability is almost non existant on the left
April 19th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Imus and Lieberman who give Imus credit for why he one on the Independent ticket. This is from Lieberman’s appearance on Imus in the Morning.
http://imustimes.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/why-didnt-you-bring-imus/#comments
April 19th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Micky,
“What does that have to do with Carters stupidity…?”
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And that’s the whole point about Crater. You guys are wasting your breath and energy on an irrelevency. What the #@!! does Jimmy Carter matter to you people? What?
You guys are way too easily distracted sometimes.
JMJ
April 20th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Hah !
You say distraction ?
You should call those two clowns representing the Dems in this race and tell them that.
As a matter of fact its you who cant stay focused.
You just tried to divert from the issue of Carter to the issue of Palestinian elections.
The deal is this Jersey.
You have repeatedly put Carter up on a pedestal and even said that he was the finest human being to ever be in the White house.
As much as I’m sure you hate to admit it, this latest fiasco of his proves undeniably that if he is anything he is quite possibly one of the most ignorant and damaging presidents we have ever had.
It also brings to light how damaging it is when people like you actually support this stupid move of his and how a lot of the positions the left supports are damaging to our country.
Nancy Pelosi opening her yap in China and now this clown Carter flying to the middle east and showing disrespect for his country by doing it.
And it is not irrelevant Jersey.
He is creating expectations on the behalf of Hamas that could well leave them disgrutled and even more unstable when someone who actually has authority comes into the picture and doesnt represent any of Carters sentiments or ideas. He is leading our foriegn policy or at the least sidetracking and molesting whatever policies we already have in place. He is confusing the issue by giving Hamas an alternate message that is somehow is coming from the US.
Its in all actuality treason, he went against the wishs of an office he represents.
And he has accepted government funding for his center and yet does not offer the same respect when asked for it.
So. It is not a “distraction” it is a serious issue when past presidents start running around talking out of their asses and only making things worse upon worse.
We have enough problems in trhe middle east without him over there stirring things up.
And you and your bunch should be calling on him to just go home, sit down and shut up.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:57 am
Israel should pick one government building in Gaza. Hit it with a missle every time a missle in launched into Israel. It’ll be like a clock striking the hour of missle attacks. It’ll be Big Ben. No Big Ben Gurion. At the start of each month a new government building can be chosen to get hit. All warnings can be given so innocents can flee to safety. Soon, all Palestinians will associate their government with missile strikes. They will learn to stay away from the government while it allows missle attacks. Maybe not a government building. Maybe just a really high hill that can be seen for miles around. When that hill is pounded flat, choose another hill. No, wait. How about requesting an All-Arab interdiction force made of Saudi, Iranian, Egyptian, and Jordanian troops. Small arms only for self-defence. They get sent to all the locations where rocket launches were detected. Maybe if they just have to drive back and forth all week long they’ll get so sick and tired of it they’ll tell Hamas to quit it already so they can get some sleep. God, I’m tired of the blind eye the world has for this constant rocket attack. Any other country would have destroyed another one for this sort of offense, if they had the capability. I want it to end.