Grandma's army

  GRANDMA'S ARMY IN EMOTIONAL DISTRESS Yesterday felt like the longest day in my life. I was   spending   the festival - which is considered the happiest in the Jewish calendar - with my daughter, her husband, son and very pregnant daughter-in-law in Gannei Tal (a moshav down south). Instead of dancing in the synagogue we were being confined to their “safety room”, like prisoners, while continuously being bombarded by the thousands of rockets coming from Gaza. Not long after the first siren woke us all up at 6:30 in the morning my grandson, who was a commanding officer in an elite unit, was called-up. He was gradually joined by his three brothers, one son’s triplets, plus the son and daughter of my other son. With the addition of two of my granddaughters’ husbands. Some are on the border with Gaza and others were sent to the north, where the threat from Hizbullah is always imminent.   Like the Yom Kippur War, the Arabs took Israel completely by surprise. The wa...

The entire world has changed dramatically since the 1970’s – a decade which is, for Israel, one of the most traumatic. The Yom Kippur War in 1973 left the country devastated by the loss of 2,600 soldiers. In spite of the astonishing victory against all odds, the country lost faith in its leadership and, with it, a sense of security. [That is perhaps one of the reasons that, in 1977, a right-winged government defeated the impregnable Labour Party for the first time]. Although terrorism has been an ongoing factor since before Israel existed, the 70’s was a nightmare. Palestinian terrorists were sowing terror against Israelis, both on Israeli soil and around the world. The most glaring example was the terrorist attack on the Israeli team at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, in which eleven members of the team were murdered. In the same year, Ben Gurion Airport became a slaughterhouse, when three Japanese men - who had been recruited by the “Popular Front for the Liberation ...

  “The only reason Israel goes to war is to defend itself. And it has to defend itself because it is surrounded by countries, and armed groups, that want to destroy it”. The above was stated by Colonel Richard Kemp, a retired British army officer, who has more experience in war and terrorism than almost anybody. He was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, and has fought in combat zones around the world, including Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Macedonia and Iraq. He was also present throughout the conflict in Gaza in 2014. Among other awards, he was made the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 He stated that, nowhere was the essential morality and decency of the IDF more evident than in the Gaza War. In the first six months of 2014, Hamas (designated as a terror organization by the US State Department) launched hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians. If ever there was a purely defensive war, that was it. After repeated warnings from Israel to stop, the Is...

According to the   National Insurance Institute of Israel, the number of civilians murdered in enemy activity - since Israel declared its independence in 1948 - stands today at 3,134. In a country with only 6.4 million Jewish citizens, this is a staggering figure. Enemy terror attacks have left 3,175 orphans in their wake, among them 114 who lost both parents, 822 widows and widowers and 926 bereaved parents. Last week, another 12 orphans were added. The father of the twelve siblings, 47 year old Rabbi Achiad Ettinger, was murdered by a 19 year-old terrorist. The other two victims of the tragic terrorist attack were two 19 year old soldiers, one of whom was killed and the other is fighting for his life. Adding to the number of bereaved parents.    As the result of a grassroots campaign, the Israeli government agreed to   recognize civilian victims of terror as it does soldiers who fall in the line of duty.  In the 1970’s,   the campaign ...

Have just returned from a family visit to London. It was at the tail end of a two month heat wave and drought, and didn’t look like the England I had known. I couldn’t help thinking of the most popular song, or hymn, written by William Blake in 1804, that I still remembered from my school days.   To quote the final verse in this epic poem -   which is considered by many to be the English unofficial national anthem: “I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand: Till we have built Jerusalem, In England’s green & pleasant Land.” The phrase "green and pleasant land" has become a common term for an identifiably English landscape and society . The landscape I knew and loved was damp and green. The one which greeted me on arrival was dry and brownish.   As far as “ society ” is concerned, England is certainly a far cry from what it was in Blake’s day. I thought the newspapers would be a refreshing change from the news we get in ...

Over the border in Gaza, a Hamas supported invasion attempt has been raging for over a month, with rioters throwing firebombs, blazing kites,   and shooting at IDF soldiers. Almost every day at least 20 fields are burned, up to a distance of 40 kilometres from the Gaza border. Death and destruction has become the way of life for young Gazans who have been taught to hate and destroy – as they did when Gush Katif was given to them with all the greenhouses intact. In the last few months the green landscapes in the fields worked by the Israeli settlements and villages on the   Gaza borders have been turned to black and scorched earth. A few girls from the  Kfar Maimon  moshav decided to change this grim scenario and to introduce some colour into the burnt territories. They felt that, by organizing a fashion show they would increase public awareness to the terrible damage being caused by the many fires which were burning up the crops, nature reserves...

How can anyone in the world, politically astute, who looks at the map and the demographics and says it’s within the power of the Jewish people to bring peace? There is a chorus around the world which accompanies our peace process which states: “Go on with this peace process. It is good for you. It is the only way. You are morally obliged to continue”. We hear it from everywhere in the whole of enlightened Europe. “The number of Jews killed in terrorist attacks is small, and you are accustomed to death. You have been hounded for generations, and lost six million only three generations ago. With one and a half million children among   those millions, what matters it in the grand scheme of things if another teenager is murdered.” A nation worn and grief-stricken from the devastation of the Holocaust believed that its victory in war, the final arbiter of international politics, would ensure its ultimate acceptance in the region. Yet the Arabs refus...