We Are At War & I Am Proud To Be Israeli

I've not written for a week as the situation here has deteriorated and so has my mood.

On a personal level I have a traumatised child here. I hesitate to even write this as families on the border with Gaza have been running from rocket attacks for the past 14 years. We have had 3 air raid sirens and coped with them admirably. However, I am not in control of what the other kids say at kindergarten. The kids with older brothers and sisters who have friends with even older brothers and sisters.... and so things trickle down to even the little ones.

DD, who was already sleeping in my bed, will not now go to sleep in the bedroom if I am not there. She wakes up in the night and tells me she's scared of the baddies but she won't tell me what exactly because, "it's too bad, I can't tell you." Twice this week she was supposed to go to a friend to play after day-camp and cried that she didn't want to go, so they brought her home instead. And the frequent questions about rockets, what they do, baddies, where they are, etc... For all my lighthearted carry on attitude events have not gone unnoticed.

I am no longer concerned about our own safety. Rockets to Jerusalem were obviously not cost effective and seem to have stopped (although they're still raining down all over the south and centre of the country). Now it is a far worse situation. We had hoped to avoid a ground invasion at all costs but after 3 cease fires where we cease and Hamas fires, terror tunnels found as far as 1.5km into Israel and even under a kibbutz dining hall, rockets found hidden in an UNWRA school which UNWRA handed back to Hamas, and Gazan citizens told to ignore Israel's warnings that they send before firing (we want to destroy weapon stores not kill people), there was no other choice.

So now our boys and our men, my students, my friends' sons, brothers, and husbands, fathers, colleagues, neighbours, are risking their lives for our safety. Over 20 families have so far been plunged into despair. I was too frightened to call one of my friends last night as 13 soldiers from her new son-in-law's brigade were killed yesterday.

This is a war against Hamas, a recognised terrorist organisation funded by Iran and no less dangerous than Al Quaeda funded by Iraq. When America was brought to its knees on 9/11 and London was attacked on 7/7 four years later, America, Britain, France and Germany invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. That was approximately 3,052 civilians killed in the US and UK. Since then:

Between 2001-2014, some 21,000 to 23,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan.

Between 2001-2014, 20,000 to 30,000 civilians were killed in Pakistan.

Between 2001-2014, 133,000 to 147,000 civilians were killed in Iraq.

All these civilians were killed by U.S., French, British and German forces.

data from http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/us-israel-could-do-more-to-prevent-civilian-deaths/2014/07/18/

So don't talk to me about disproportionate retaliation.

I read this in a DailyMail comment (serves me right for going there): "Hamas rockets don't actually hurt anyone." - They are metal missiles with sharp edges, about 1m long and packed with explosives. What do you mean they don't hurt?! Over 1,500 of these have been fired into Israel in the past three weeks.

About the poor Palestinians. I'm not being facetious. They are poor indeed. When Israel pulled out of Gaza 9 years ago, we left working agricultural farms and were offering to provide training for their continuation. We left hotels, houses, factories. All this, along with billions in financial aid from Europe and the US, could have gone toward building a Palestinian utopia. Instead everything was destroyed. They have a long Mediterranean coastline - beaches for tourism (look at Sharm El Sheik for example), a port for exports (Israel did not start sanctions on shipping from Gaza until it was used to import weapons for destroying Israel), a delsalination plant could have been built so that water shortages will never be an issue. There was money for all this and more to spare. It was all used by Hamas to buy weapons of destruction.

The Gaza-Egyptian border is permanently closed because Egypt is scared of Hamas. No one mentions the Egyptian border when Israel is accused of locking the Gazans in. This is doubly ironic when Israel sends daily supplies of food and medicine across the border and Gazans cross into Israel for work and medical treatment in Israeli hospitals.

Now their homes, schools and hospitals are being used to store these weapons. Hamas knows it cannot win a weapons war against Israel with their unpredictable rockets, over 100 of which have fallen inside Gaza itself, but it can win the PR war if only thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians are killed. It was a coup for them when their own rockets destroyed the main electrical cables into Gaza - 70,000 civilians without electricity. The UN wasted no time announcing an impending humanitarian distaster. However, Israel fixed the cables so that we could continue supplying free electricity. Yes the Palestinians in Gaza are poor indeed.

We are fighting against terrorists and make no mistake, if they are allowed to continue operating they are not going to stop at destroying Israel. Israel is an easy target - it is a western outpost in the midst of hostile neighbours (some less hostile and we do 'enjoy' a cold peace with Jordan and Egypt, though not any actual support), it is small, and the world has a tendency to hate Jews and want to annihilate them every few hundred years.

9/11 and 7/7 followed by years of quagmire war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, should have taught the West who the baddies are. But still there are larger rallies protesting against Israel defending itself (and ultimately everyone) than there are rallies against the atrocities in Syria or Nigeria.

I started to get upset by the ignorance of many internet users, even though I have had wonderfully supportive and kind messages from my blogging friends. I watched incredulously as British politicians bashed Israel - where were they on 7/7/2005? I don't begin to understand the motives of non-Moslem moderates who in every other area of their lives enjoy the fruits of Israeli innovation and technology - laptops, mobile phones, medical innovations, kindles... watch the video below and see if you can realistically boycott Israel.

I started to get upset but then I rose above it. I am proud to be Israeli. I will continue to try to educate those who don't get it and pray that their ignorance does not in the end allow us all to be destroyed.