A Joyful Event
On Saturday, March 14 at fifty-one minutes after midnight, my great niece came into the world in a Tel Aviv hospital. At just under three kilos she was a healthy full term baby. Her parents are both doing well. During the first day of her life she was transported to a bomb shelter eight times, as the city of Tel Aviv came under wave after wave of rocket fire from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Her proud grandmother was there during two of the eight rocket alerts. She described the scene: When a launch is detected in Iran, the maternity ward gets a couple of minutes advance warning. The babies are wheeled into the corridor in their cribs by their parents. When the siren goes off, all the elevators come automatically to the maternity floor. Any passengers on the elevators are escorted off and directed to take the stairs, and the babies are wheeled in, five to an elevator, accompanied by one of their parents.
The elevators descend two floors, and the people in the lower corridor step aside as the parent wheels the precious cargo into the bomb shelter. With this protocol, all of the newborns are transported to safety within 90 seconds from the time the air raid sirens are triggered.
While in the shelter, nurses and volunteers circulate among the new mothers offering aid and coaching for those who are nursing. People are orderly and calm and they follow instructions. Thus, the maternity ward continues to operate in wartime.
Image: Israeli mothers with their newborns — Source: Ynet
A Nation Stands Strong
After over thirty months of war, a nation traumatized by the horrific massacre and obscene atrocities committed by Hamas at the beginning of the war, and by hundreds of combat deaths and thousands of injuries in the months since, continues to find a way forward. Life goes on. The joys and sorrows of everyday life arrive each day for 10 million Israelis, too busy to notice the world’s effort to turn them into a symbol of evil.
Those who imagine an end to Israel “within our lifetime” seem entirely unaware of who they are trying to erase from the planet. The Israelis of this generation are proud, and they believe in their country and their people. Those who observe Israel’s fractured politics or the venality of its leaders, its social divisions and ideological quarrels may mistakenly believe these are signs of weakness. Even as Israel’s fractious political leaders gear up for an election, the people of Israel stand overwhelmingly behind the government’s decision to go to war.
The Israel defense forces rely on hundreds of thousands of reservists who run toward danger whenever they are called. On October 7, thousands ran even when they were not yet summoned and looked to help in any way they could. Their stories of heroism and sacrifice are already part of Israel’s legendarium.
Remembering How we got here
Thirty-three years ago in 1993, I celebrated along with many Israelis, and lovers of Israel around the world, when the Oslo accords were signed and Israel embarked on what we thought would be the road to peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. We believed in the principle of land for peace. For the sake of peace, Israel would give up a portion of the land of Israel, the Jewish patrimony, so that a Palestinian state could come into being. In return, we understood that the Palestinians would end their decades long quest, backed by most of the Arab world, to deny the Jewish people the right to our own state in any part of the land.
As we all know, the Oslo process ended in disaster. One of the most important factors in derailing the peace process was Hamas, which had been formed in the late 1980’s based on the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, and dedicated to the uncompromising principle that Palestinians (and indeed all Muslims) had a duty to fight Israel as long as it existed. They believe that no price is too high to pay to achieve that goal and that any attempt to make peace with Israel is an act of treason.
Hamas has had great success in derailing the many efforts to find a compromise that would preserve Israel as a Jewish state, while fulfilling Palestinian aspirations to create their own state next to Israel. In response to that success, Israelis have elected leaders who remembered the failure of Oslo, and were skeptical about territorial compromise. Chief among these skeptics has been Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s career has flourished as Hamas has proved again and again that Israeli flexibility will always be exploited and never reciprocated.
Today, the majority of Israelis believe that only superior force and strategy will keep them safe. Efforts to show good will and flexibility will be seen by the other side as signs of weakness, and are therefore worse than useless. Not every Israeli believes this, but Benjamin Netanyahu has been able to form government again and again because that majority keeps seeing behaviour that reinforces that belief. How did the Israel that believed in Oslo become the Israel which distrusts any sort of compromise?
Netanyahu first won power in 1996 when a series of mass killings by Hamas derailed the high flying campaign of Shimon Peres, who had seemed on course to victory following the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin. Peres ran on a promise to complete the Oslo process begun under his predecessor. The Hamas bombings spread fear and skepticism among the electorate, and they turned to Netanyahu, who had opposed the Oslo process from the beginning.
Netanyahu’s first government was followed by that of Ehud Barak, who made another attempt, under the auspices of US President Bill Clinton, to arrive at a settlement with the Palestinians. That effort failed when Yasser Arafat rejected Israel’s offer of 93% of the land captured in 1967, and demanded that millions of Palestinians exercise the right of return, not to the proposed State of Palestine, but to Israel. This was followed by the Second Intifada, in which the PLO joined Hamas in acts of mass violence against Israelis, shattering the undertaking they made at Oslo that remaining differences between the Palestinians and Israelis would be settled at the bargaining table.
In the years before October of 2023, Israelis again began to believe that coexistence was possible. Gaza was a de facto Palestinian state, operating under a Palestinian government. The fact that the government was controlled by Hamas no longer seemed to be as big a threat as it once had. Israel had facilitated the flow of money from Qatar into Gaza to help sustain government services under the Hamas regime. An increasing number of Gaza Palestinians were receiving permits to work in Israel. Israel’s leadership believed that Hamas had turned its attention to economic development and that they were deterred from trying to attack Israel. Ironically this coincided with a long period in which Benjamin Netanyahu was again Prime Minister of Israel.
Since October 2023, any belief by most Israelis that Hamas could be bribed, cajoled or threatened into submission has evaporated. Most everyone agrees that Hamas must be removed from power. During the war that began 30 months ago, Israel has inflicted much harm against Hamas, but as of this writing they still control half of Gaza and most of the population.
It should be clear to the world that Israel’s skepticism about any possible compromise with Hamas also extends to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Like Hamas, Iran has never wavered from the principle that destroying Israel is the duty of every Muslim. This is not a theoretical belief, but something that Iran has invested billions in trying to accomplish. This is why Israel’s government was horrified by the JCPOA agreement negotiated by US President Obama. This is why Israel has long aspired to bring down the regime in Iran.
Iran’s anti-Israel ideology and growing military power was quite reasonably seen by Israel as an existential threat. To understand Israel’s reasons for undertaking the current war, any observer must understand this fact above all.
Home from the Hospital
Two days after her birth, my great niece and her parents came home from the hospital to their apartment in Tel Aviv. Since the sixteenth of March, she has lived with them in the safe room of that apartment. Now seven days old, she has known many more sirens and missile attacks. In spite of the best efforts of those who hate Israel, she and her parents, her grandparents (including my sister) and the Israeli people get up each day and carry on with their lives. This morning she made her inaugural appearance on the weekly family Zoom call, which connects North American parents and siblings with my sister’s family in Israel. After another night of hourly rocket attacks from Iran, her parents were tired, while she slept through the event.
Someday (may it be soon) the threat from Iran will be ended, and the war will end as well. With God’s help, my niece will grow and flourish in Israel, she and her parents will know many days of joy, and together with the whole people of Israel they will build a better life for themselves and, God willing, their neighbours as well. Generations to come will look back on these difficult days and marvel at the strength and resilience of Israel’s people, as they stand against every force and nation that seeks their destruction. The people of Israel lives! (Am Yisrael Chai!)
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