Ballot boxes, bombs and bullets

Tuesday, February 6, 2001

Tuesday was of course election day in Israel, which in Israel is a national holiday. We live right next to our polling booth, so we voted early and then went south for the day to take a break from the elections. We weren't the only ones with that idea. We saw many families out for the day in the national parks, though the most crowded place was the shopping mall in Be'er Sheva where we stopped for dinner on the way home.

We explored the northwest Negev region, an agricultural area of plains and gentle rolling hills on the edge of the desert. It was an unseasonably warm winter day, the sun was bright, the wildflowers created carpets of yellow, mauve, white and red and the air was filled with birdsong. Many birds of prey winter in the fields in this area and we saw many soaring over the roads or perched on trees by the road. Fields of sunflowers and grains lined the route, as well as - believe it or not - several ostrich farms. Not far from the road we passed the Nahal Besor stream and relaxed to the gentle tinkling of the water rushing over the rocky stream bed.

Yet to the west of this region is the battleground of Gaza, where the Jewish communities are under constant attack and only the day before an Israeli soldier on patrol was killed by a Palestinian sniper. Only a mere 20 kilometres away in the Eshkol-Nahal Besor national park all was blissfully peaceful, save for the odd military helicopter flying overhead. It was hard to believe that we were so close to Gaza, hard to believe that had we continued a few kilometres further we would have reached army road blocks and armoured convoys. It really brought home how localised the violence is. The Israeli communities of Gaza are the buffer zone bearing the brunt of Palestinian attacks, protecting the north-west Negev from Palestinian terror.

From the fields and dunes of the Nahal Besor region we continued south and east into the real Negev desert, a land of rocky cliffs and barren landscapes. Even here though the winter rains have brought some colour, patches of wildflowers and greenery in the wadis and ditches by the road, wherever the runoff from the rains has settled. Along the road we noticed the occasional Bedouin encampment, shepherds with their flocks of sheep and goats and once a herd of semi-wild camels foraging in the middle of nowhere with no human settlement in sight.

One of the loveliest places in this region is Ein Avdat, a dramatic canyon with a spring fed stream flowing along its floor. The hike along the canyon floor is easy, and we had a leisurely wander along the trail, accompanied by the calming rushing of the water, the song of the birds perched in the waterside vegetation and the cooing of the doves nestled along the rocky ledges high above us. From time to time a huge Griffon vulture soared over the canyon, one of the largest birds of prey in the region.

There were a few other people around, but the site wasn't crowded. By late afternoon we were taking it easy, relaxing by the stream and watching the ibex wild goats clatter down the rocky cliffside for an evening drink. The fateful elections were a world away.

We arrived home at 7pm, three hours before the polls were to close. There was nothing on television but meaningless reports about voter turnout and commentary on post-election scenarios. An hour before voting ended, Channel 2 thankfully tried to help ease the tension with an election-special game show. Animated Sharon and Barak characters appeared on the screen to tell contestants whether their answers were right or wrong.

Then at 10pm the nation held its breath as the first exit polls were released. There were few surprises. As the polls have been indicating for weeks, Ariel Sharon, was elected prime minister by the largest landslide in Israeli history with the exit polls indicating a win of about 59% to 40%. By the following morning with 99% of the vote counted Sharon's success was confirmed: 62.6% to 37.4%.

It would be hard to imagine a more decisive repudiation for prime minister Ehud Barak. Amazing that only in May 1999 his election was greeted by so many Israelis with such optimism, even euphoria. He really seemed to offer the consensus, centrist government that so many Israelis yearned for. Today there is hardly anybody who will say a good word about him. How the mighty have fallen.

Thursday, February 8, 2001

Every time you think that maybe, just maybe, things are calming down a bit, the Palestinians do something to shatter any remnant of hope that maybe, just maybe, they really might decide to honour one of the numerous ceasefire agreements they've committed to in recent months. I know, perhaps my letters are predictable, always a lull before some kind of storm, but I can only tell it the way it is, and sadly that is the way it is.

I had a free afternoon on Thursday because a girl I'm tutoring cancelled on me. I took the opportunity to do something I've wanted to do for a long time - accompany a local naturalist and birder to a rural area just behind Modi'in and observe the wildlife there. I have always loved nature, especially birds. In these crazy times I find it comforting to be out watching the birds, it helps me to take my mind off the more pressing problems of the day.

It was a productive afternoon with my guide showing me several species I'd never seen before. As twilight approached a pair of owls began calling to each other across the valley, and soon their cries were joined by the howling and cackling of jackals from the other side of the hill. As we were scanning the horizon with our binoculars, hoping to catch sight of the jackals my friend's mobile phone rang. I heard him say "A pigu'a (terror attack)? Where? How many hurt?" My heart sank. Not again. The phone conversation ended and he turned to me "Do you have family in Jerusalem?" I hovered somewhere between panic and alarming calm. Panic because I have a lot of family and friends in the city, not to mention plenty who work there even if they live elsewhere. Calm, because sadly such news has become so routine that I no longer have the strength to panic for long.

We heard more jackals, but didn't see any this time. I arrived home half an hour later and switched on the TV. Channel 1 was on a basketball game and Channel 2 had a celebrity documentary about supermodels. Nothing to watch on TV, that meant that the terror attack wasn't too serious, otherwise both stations would be on special news bulletins.

When the news finally came on at 7:30pm it became clear that thank God, we have merited another miracle in the midst of this tragic situation. The car bomb was planted in a side street at the edge of the Hareidi (very traditional orthodox) Meah She'arim neighbourhood near central Jerusalem. A witness, still pale with shock, noted that only minutes before the blast a truck laden with gas canisters had driven right past the bombers' car. Had God forbid the bomb gone off as the truck passed one shudders to think of the terrible outcome.

Close to the scene of the blast is a charity centre which distributes food to the needy of Jerusalem every Thursday afternoon at 5:30pm, ensuring that the poor have meals for Shabbat. The bomb went off about 15 minutes earlier, and had the blast occurred at a 5:30, Heaven forbid, we would be looking at a far higher and more serious casualty toll. There is speculation that this centre, crowded with people, was the terrorists' target. This evening locals were celebrating the miracle. The news showed hundreds of Hassidim dancing and singing, thanking God for saving their neighbourhood.

Sunday, February 11, 2001

Our Palestinian peace partners still apparently need to have the word peace explained to them. Over the last few days there has been a steady upsurge in attacks, just as they promised us there would be, to celebrate the Israeli elections. At least they keep their word on something even if they ignore the peace agreements. There has been a marked increase in shootings, bombings and stonings. I'm not going to mention every incident here, I can't, there have been scores in recent days alone.

The Bethlehem region in particular has been heating up. Tonight 35-year-old Tzahi Sasson was murdered while driving home from work in Jerusalem to the village of Rosh Tzurim. Sasson was hit in the head by Palestinian gunfire while he was driving on the highway bridge linking southern Jerusalem with Gush Etzion. At first he was seriously wounded, and Israeli soldiers and ambulance crews struggled to rescue him under continuous fire from Palestinian controlled Bethlehem. By the time the wounded civilian was extricated and evacuated to hospital it was too late.

Just a short while ago we sat in horror watching the desperate attempts to rescue the wounded civilian with the soldiers crouching low behind the bridge railings to avoid becoming targets for the Palestinians, using armoured military vehicles to shield the ambulance from snipers. Once again I sat in my living room and watched a familiar road become a war zone. Only a year ago we took that road to Efrat to attend my cousin's Bar Mitzvah. I remember sitting by the bus window and looking towards the mosque minarets and occasional churches which dot the Bethlehem skyline. Now that bus journey seems a whole lifetime away.

Palestinian gunmen in Bethlehem have been firing on and off at Rachel's Tomb for almost a day now. This evening they resumed shooting at the southern Jerusalem neighbourhood of Gilo. The living room of 90 year-old Tzila Stricker was hit by Palestinian gunfire. She and her carer narrowly escaped injury. Tonight she said they'll be sleeping in her windowless hallway just to be on the safe side.

Earlier today an Israeli soldier was wounded when Palestinians opened fire on the Israeli-Palestinian coordinating office in Bethlehem. The office is supposed to facilitate cooperation between the two sides on security and humanitarian matters, but all too often the Palestinians have attacked it instead. Over Shabbat the Giv'at Hadagan neighbourhood of Efrat, south of Jerusalem, was also subjected to Palestinian fire from the Bethlehem area.

The Jews of Gaza have also been having it tough. The Gaza region has been a constant focus for Palestinian violence, even when other sectors have calmed down a bit. Today a mortar shell was fired at the Israeli village of Netzarim for the second time in two weeks. Luckily it fell in an open patch of ground, and not, as last time, on someone's house. Residents were instructed to spent the night in bomb shelters. Roadside bombs and ambushes are daily occurrences in Gaza, with several Israelis wounded in recent days and a number of miraculous near misses.

The besieged residents of Netzarim are holding firm though, despite the constant shooting, despite being able to travel to and from their homes only in armoured convoys. Imagine living like that for months now, going to work and school with the ever present threat that you or your spouse or your children will not make it home in one piece - if at all. One Netzarim resident put it like this: we're protecting Israel's border so we have to remain strong.

In the lower Galilee region of northern Israel, some Israeli Arabs have once again joined in the fun, throwing rocks at passing Jewish motorists driving along the Wadi `Ara road, a major east-west artery. At least one Jewish driver was lightly injured by a rock thrown at his car.

Hard to think that all this is less than a week's worth of news. How we long for calmer days.

"Wonderful adventure"

Tuesday, January 30, 2001

The other day someone sent me one of those "inspiring" e-mail chain letters. This one was entitled "Let Your Life Be a Wonderful Adventure!" I couldn't help but laugh. I don't know about wonderful, but adventures, here in Israel we seem to have too many of those. I could certainly go for some wonderful though.

Once again, the amount of news and the pace of events has just been overwhelming. Even more overwhelming though is the task of trying to explain to you overseas what it feels like in Israel right now. I feel the urge to catalogue everything, to send you every fragment of news that happens here because perhaps that is the only way to describe life here. So if this letter is long, forgive me. If it takes several coffee breaks to read it, I understand. I didn't even have space in this letter to write about everything that is on my mind, so much will have to wait for next time. And if I sound a bit incoherent, well, that's just the after effects of the anaesthetic. I had a wisdom tooth removed this evening.

A few weeks ago, on a gloriously sunny and unseasonably warm winter day I took the bus into Jerusalem to take care of some errands. Yeah, nothing new there. The landscape in this area is now beautifully green after the rains, covered in wildflowers, red anemones, pink cyclamen and white asphodels. The first almond trees are in bloom, creating whitish-pink puffs along the hillsides. From the bus I noticed chukar partridges wandering along rocky embankments next to the highway and even gazelle frolicking on another slope. The gazelle made my day, it's rare to see these shy antelope, though they are not that uncommon in this part of the country.

More unusual, though, were the tanks I saw by the side of the road. I now see them every time I take the bus into Jerusalem. In light of the increasing severity of the attacks on the main Modi'in-Jerusalem road the army has stepped up its presence on the route. There are now several new army outposts on cliff tops overlooking the road. In some of these new outposts, such as the one overlooking the spot were Eli Cohen from Modi'in was murdered in December, there are now also tanks.

I'm not entirely sure how useful the tanks are against snipers, but I suppose that it does make local residents feel that the army is at least doing more to protect us. As to whether they make me feel safer, I'm not sure. On the one hand the increased army presence in general does make the road feel more secure, on the other hand it is terrible to be reminded that things have come to this, that we need tanks on the highway to protect us from Palestinian attack.

The juxtaposition of the gazelle and the tanks was surreal to say the least, but sadly it is a metaphor for our rather odd existence of late. The gazelle is one of the traditional symbols of the land of Israel, "Land of the Gazelle" as the bible describes it. This antelope symbolises grace, beauty, agility and speed in the bible. Perhaps today they symbolise our fleeting dreams of peace and tranquillity.

The tanks reminded me of the other road to Jerusalem. In 1948 Arab snipers controlled the high ground on either side of that road, Route 1, and the only way Jews could get from the Tel Aviv area to Jerusalem was to run the gauntlet in armoured convoys. The wrecks of these armoured vehicles still line the main Tel-Aviv Jerusalem road, grim reminders of the cost paid in Jewish lives to secure the road between Israel's major cities and the Israeli capital.

Route 443, Modi'in's main road to Jerusalem, was recently widened and improved in part so that Israel would never face a 1948 situation again, whereby there was only one major road connecting Jerusalem to the lowlands and coast. So that Jerusalem could never again be besieged so easily, just by cutting the single Jerusalem-Tel-Aviv road with its narrow mountain passes. With Route 443 threatened and the southern road from Jerusalem to Gush Etzion frequently closed due to Palestinian attacks from the Bethlehem area, most of the traffic to Jerusalem is once again channelled through the narrow mountain passes that make up Route 1. God forbid, but it almost feels as though we're sliding back to 1948.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Shayeret haLamed Heh - the Convoy of the 35. During the 1948 Israeli War of Independence 38 Israelis went in a convoy to bring supplies to the Jewish villages of Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem, which were then under siege by Arab forces. One man was wounded en route and two men escorted him back to base. The remaining 35 continued until they were ambushed by an Arab mob on a hill en route to the Gush. In the ensuing battle all 35 were killed.

In a radio interview yesterday Shaul Goldstein, the head of the Gush Etzion regional council recalled how his father was in a similar supply convoy, shortly thereafter, the Neve Daniel convoy. Sadly the Israelis were unable to break the siege and the Jewish villages of the Gush fell to the Arab armies. The surviving defenders of the Gush were massacred or captured. However the Gush defenders were instrumental in saving Jerusalem, blocking Egyptian forces advancing from the south and preventing them from joining up with the Jordanian soldiers attacking Jerusalem from the east.

It was only in 1967, in the Six Day War that Israel recaptured this region, following the Jordanian attack on Jerusalem. After this war many surviving Gush residents or their children returned to the region, rebuilding three of the destroyed villages, Kfar Etzion, Neve Daniel and Rosh Tzurim (formerly Ein Tzurim). When the Palestinians began their recent intifada war against Israel the Gush Etzion region was once again on the front line. Shaul Goldstein found himself following in his father's footsteps as he travelled in bullet proofed buses with army escorts to and from his home in the Gush along almost exactly the same route his father took over 50 years ago.

That I haven't written in a while does not mean that it has been quiet here. At the moment on average each week two Israelis are killed by Palestinian gunmen. Most of the deaths have been those of civilians deliberately targeted by Palestinian terrorists. For example, two weeks ago Roni Tzalah, a farmer from Kfar Yam, a village in Israeli Gaza, was murdered by his Palestinian employees. Later that week Ofir Rahum, a teenager from Ashkelon was lured to Palestinian controlled Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, by a Palestinian e-mail penpal, who posed as an American living in Jerusalem. When he went to meet her he was murdered by Palestinian gunmen apparently acting in conjunction with her.

Last week two Israeli restauranteurs, Moti Dayan and Etgar Zeituny, from Tel Aviv's trendy Shenkin Street were murdered when they went with an Israeli Arab acquaintance to Palestinian controlled Tulkarm, east of Netanya, to purchase decorative jugs and flowerpots. The threesome stopped at a restaurant in Tulkarm and were seized by Palestinian gunmen. The two Israeli Jews were "executed", the Israeli Arab's life was spared.

Last Thursday night Akiva Pashkos, a 45-year-old father of six from Jerusalem's Bayit Vegan neighbourhood, was shot and killed by Palestinian gunmen as he drove home from work in the north Jerusalem industrial zone of Atarot.

When the restauranteurs were murdered, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were meeting in Taba, Egypt in a last-ditch effort by the lame-duck Israeli government to come up with a diplomatic success before the impending elections, which they are expected to lose by a landslide. When news came through of the double murder, the Israeli team suspended talks until after the funerals two days later in a gesture of respect to the bereaved families. A couple days later, when Akiva Pashkos was murdered, the Israeli delegation took a break for just one hour, eagerly returning to the table because they assured us much progress was being made and waiting until after the funeral would have been too much of a disruption. Many Israelis felt that respect for the life of Israeli citizens was cheapened by this casual response to Pashkos's murder.

In the end, talks broke up with a glitzy press conference and an empty declaration of "much progress". While Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami spoke of peace, his Palestinian counterpart hinted that if they don't get everything they demand through negotiations, they have "other means" of continuing the struggle. Similarly, in Davos, Switzerland this week, while former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres spoke of his yearnings for peace, Yasser Arafat took the opportunity to spout venomous lies, accusing Israel of all manner of barbaric behaviour, playing to the fears of his European hosts by falsely charging Israel with using depleted uranium and other forms of "illegal" weapons. Shocked by Arafat's outburst, Prime Minister Barak cancelled a planned meeting with him, only to reconsider when Arafat changed his tone completely in an interview the following day, though without retracting any of his earlier vitriolic remarks. Again, Israel speaks of peace, Palestinian leaders speak of war, and Israel comes back for more, and still we dare to hope for peace which looks more remote with each passing day.

This afternoon I attended the funeral of 55-year-old Arieh Herzkovitz, a father of four, murdered yesterday on his way home from work. Herzkovitz, the son of Holocaust survivors, was killed by Palestinian terrorists in a drive-by shooting on the road to his home in Ofra, north of Jerusalem. I didn't know him, but one of his sons is married to a schoolfriend of mine, so I wanted to go and pay my respects. The Petah Tikva cemetery where he was buried was filled with hundreds of mourners, many of whom followed the cortege all the way from Ofra, north of Jerusalem, via his workplace in Atarot, to Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv.

In one of the graveside eulogies the Chief Rabbi of Petah Tikva reminded the mourners that the cemetery in Petah Tikva also contains the graves of the Jews of the town murdered during the anti-Jewish riots of 1921, when local Arabs tried to destroy what was then a small Jewish village. As the thriving modern town of Petah Tikva shows, the Arab mobs of 1921 failed in their mission. Now, as then, the Rabbi said, the Arab mobs terrorising Jews in Israel in an attempt to destroy the Jewish state, will fail in their mission. The Rabbi expressed the hope that Ofra, like Petah Tikva, will thrive and grow.

Yesterday an Israeli taxi driver from Ra'anana was attacked by his Palestinian passengers. The driver picked up the passengers in the Israeli town of Kfar Saba. They asked to be taken to the Israeli Arab village of Baka-el-Gharbia, however instead they tricked him into driving them to the neighbouring Palestinian village of Baka-e-Sharkiya, where they stabbed him. Then more Palestinians appeared on the scene, dragged him out of his taxi and began beating him. In a desperate attempt to save his life the Israeli driver spoke to them in Arabic, insisting that he was in fact an Israeli Arab, not a Jew, begging them to spare his life. The ruse worked. Convinced that the taxi driver was in fact an Arab, they let him go, taking only his car, but sparing his life. Had the Israeli driver not been a fluent Arabic speaker his fate would have been even worse.

In a similar attack last week another Israeli taxi driver was attacked by Palestinian passengers, including a Palestinian policeman, in his cab en-route to Jerusalem. The driver struggled with his attackers, saving his life by jumping from the moving vehicle. By law Israeli taxi drivers have to take passengers who get into their cabs, so it would have been illegal to refuse Palestinian passengers. Several weeks ago a similar attack occurred, also on the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem highway, when a Palestinian passenger stabbed an Israeli taxi driver, seriously wounding him.

These are just the tip of the iceberg. In scores of other roadside attacks Israelis have escaped with "only" minor wounds such as a bullet graze or bruising and fractures from rocks. And so the five month old Palestinian guerilla war goes on. Shooting attacks, fire bombs, roadside bombs and rock throwing continue, some days a bit more, some days a bit less. Any Israeli neighbourhood close to a Palestinian area is a potential target. The Jewish communities of Gaza, especially the village of Netzarim, are under almost constant attack. The Jerusalem neighbourhoods of Gilo, Neveh Ya'akov and Ramot have come under fire from neighbouring Palestinian controlled villages, while other Jerusalem neighbourhoods such as Armon Hanatziv and Giv'at Hamatos have been firebombed. The odd potshot or firebomb lobbed from Palestinian controlled areas in the direction of their Israeli neighbours such as Tzur Yigal, Bat Hefer or Nitzanei 'Oz north of Kfar Saba.

There is a joke, originally by Israeli satirist Uri Orbakh, making the rounds of Israel at the moment in various forms. It goes something like this:

"In America, everyone knows that it is terribly dangerous in Israel now. In Israel everyone knows that it is dangerous only in a little bit of Jerusalem. In Jerusalem everyone knows there is shooting going on, but only in the neighbourhood of Gilo. In Gilo everyone knows that it is dangerous, but only in the houses that face Beit Jalla. In the houses facing Beit Jalla everyone knows it is dangerous, but mostly in a few apartments on specific floors that get shot at occasionally.

"In the apartments that get shot at they know it is dangerous, but not in all the rooms, just in the kitchen. In the bedrooms and bathrooms for instance, it is totally safe. In the kitchen that gets shot into they know it is really dangerous, but not in the entire kitchen, just near the fridge and toaster.

"And in the freezer over the fridge part of the refrigerator on one part of Ha'anafa Street at the edge of Gilo in Jerusalem in Israel? Oh boy, it is dangerous there. If you stand there and get some frozen schnitzels out of the freezer - you're taking your life in your hands. So for a few months, just until things calm down, we're not going to use the freezer. Nu, this you call dangerous?"

So that's the way it is. We try to make the best of a crazy situation.

Oh, and did I mention that we have elections next Tuesday?

Life goes on

Friday, January 5, 2001

I don't want to give you the wrong impression. Life does go on as usual in most places. People go to work, school, to the movies, shopping and out to cafes. Except for avoiding Route 443 after dark, extra police patrols and some school outings being cancelled life in Modi'in hasn't changed much. We aren't running around in fear all the time. Thank God most of us have not even heard the shooting down the road. In general, for most Israelis it's business almost as usual. Walk around in Tel Aviv or down town Jerusalem, including the Old City, and you wouldn't know anything was wrong. Life has to go on as usual, this is our best response to Palestinian terror designed to leave us cowering in our homes.

We were driving home from an evening out in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night when we heard the news. Two Israelis were shot in their car on the approach to Makkabim Junction. Makkabim Junction?! That's just down the road from us, no more than a five minute drive from our apartment. On a Saturday afternoon walk we often go up to a nearby hilltop and look towards the Makkabim junction about a mile away and watch the traffic go by. The intifada had not hit this close to home before. There have been occasional shooting attacks a few miles to the north and east of Modi'in and they have been increasing in frequency in recent weeks. I suppose we had a feeling it would come to this sooner or later but still the actual attack was shocking. I can't quite come to terms with the fact that two men were shot not five minutes from my front door.

The shooting took place at around 8pm. Yossi Barukh, 35 and Aharon Kabriakov, 23 from Neriah, a Jewish town north-east of Modi'in, were driving home from Jerusalem on Route 443, the Jerusalem-Modi'in highway. As they passed the Palestinian village of Beit Sira Palestinian gunmen opened fire on them. Yossi Barukh was shot in the head and is currently in critical condition fighting for his life at a Tel Aviv hospital. Aharon Kabriakov suffered bullet wounds to his neck and jaw and his condition is stable. A few minutes earlier two other Israeli cars came under Palestinian fire in the same area, though fortunately only the cars were damaged.

Night is when the Palestinian gunmen have the upper hand. Lately most Israelis have stopped driving on Route 443 after dark, leaving the road almost empty. The bus to Jerusalem has changed its schedule too, travelling on 443 by day, but detouring via the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway by night. For the people of Modi'in this means that the route home takes a little longer. For the people of Beit Horon, a Jewish village on Route 443 itself, it means that after dark there are no buses home. I've taken the bus into Jerusalem several times in the last few weeks. The entrances to the Palestinian villages along Route 443 have been blocked by huge concrete blocks and mounds of earth to prevent their residents from getting to the road and attacking Israeli vehicles. The olive groves along the roadside no longer seemed picturesque. They have become potential hiding places for Palestinian gunmen, as on the night two weeks ago when Eliahu Cohen was murdered. The road is the same, and yet it is transformed, pastoral beauty masking potential threats.

Recently I was talking about the situation with friends, mostly discussing what roads we would or would not drive on. One woman told of her daughter, who lives in a town close to Palestinian areas whose main access road is dominated by a Palestinian village high above the road. She drove the gauntlet of rocks and firebombs each day until one day she saw a Palestinian standing on high pushing a boulder down upon her car, a boulder that would have killed her. She pressed on the gas pedal and sped past, a move which saved her life as the boulder glanced off the car's rear fender rather than crushing the driver's seat. Since that day she decided to take the far longer, but safer route, through a winding single lane mountain road. Better to take an extra hour than not to arrive at all.

Or is it? We agonised over whether it was worth the risk to drive on roads which come under attack, if an alternative route was available. On the one hand it doesn't seem worth risking a rock through the windshield or a bullet in the head just to save time on a journey, visit friends or go away for the weekend. On the other hand if we avoid every road that has been attacked we are conceding these vital roads to our attackers and giving in to Palestinian terror. If we just avoid every road that is attacked we send the message that we can be frightened away from every road in the country, and if we allow that to happen then we will have no country. Bombs have gone off recently in major Israeli cities, Tel Aviv, Netanya, Hadera and Jerusalem, does this mean that we should avoid these places as well? Perhaps avoiding roads on which attacks have occurred is defeatist. Or perhaps we just don't feel brave in a car that can offer little protection against bullets and firebombs - or even rocks. And yet what should Israelis in "risk areas" do, drive around in armoured cars wearing helmets and bullet proof vests just to go to work or drop the kids off at school? Should we cower in our homes waiting for the danger to pass?

I don't have an answer to this dilemma, few of us do. Some avoid roads, all the while feeling guilty for doing so. Others brave roads which have been attacked, either because they have no choice, or as a matter of principle. Still others insist that the solutions are bullet proofed buses, concrete walls to protect the highways from attack or building new roads to bypass Palestinian areas. Some in the government have suggested building a wall along the borders between Israel and Palestinian-controlled areas, such as the one built at the edge of Gilo to protect it (unsuccessfully) from gunfire from neighbouring Beit Jala.

While the Modi'in area is the region I'm most familiar with, just because I don't write about other places doesn't mean that all is quiet elsewhere. Far from it - Palestinian shootings, bombings and stoning attacks continue in many parts of the country. On Monday night I arrived home at 10pm, as I usually do on a Monday night, pleasantly tired from my three-hour Flamenco class. As I walked in the door Jason casually asked if I knew how my uncle was planning to get from Jerusalem to Netanya, where he was going to visit friends. I said I thought he was taking the bus. It seemed a slightly odd question, but then my uncle had been unsure of the bus schedule, and he hadn't visited Netanya in years. Then Jason asked if I knew when he had left. Well, I last saw my uncle at 4pm when I caught the bus back from Jerusalem to Modi'in. We had spent several hours shopping in central Jerusalem for a housewarming gift for friends who have just moved into a new house in Netanya. I told Jason I thought my uncle had left Jerusalem not long after I did, and asked why he was interested in all this in the first place. A funny look came over Jason's face. "There was a pigu'a (terror attack) in central Netanya this evening, about 30 hurt, mostly lightly."

For an instant I was terrified. Then followed a feeling that my uncle must be fine. Common sense took over and told me not to panic. I called directory inquiries to get the friends' number and I phoned them as I calmly as I could. The wife answered and straight away reassured me that my uncle was there safe and sound. I heard my uncle joking in the background. Then he came on the phone to say that he had almost been in central Netanya at the time of the blast. Not sure which gift to buy, he had planned to take an early bus to Netanya and shop for a present there. At the last minute, though, he decided to buy the framed picture we had looked at in Jerusalem. In the process he missed the earlier bus. He heard the news about the car bomb while on the way to Netanya, sitting on the bus in the traffic jam caused by the police, who sealed off central Netanya after the explosions. Had he taken the earlier bus he would have been shopping in central Netanya, the scene of the bombing, just at the time of the blast.

Weeping at The Wall

Saturday night/Motz"ash, December 30, 2000

This Shabbat I was in central Jerusalem with a visiting relative and as I try to do as often as possible, I went to pray at the Kotel, the Western Wall, one of the supporting walls which are all that remain of the ancient Temple complex destroyed almost 2000 years ago by the Romans. This wall is the closest Jews can come today to our holiest site, the Temple Mount itself, which is now the site of Muslim shrines built in the 7th century.

I am always awed by walking in ancient Jerusalem, and especially when standing and praying next to those ancient stones of the wall my ancestors built millennia ago. Of course it is a cliche to wonder at what those stones have only witnessed, but all the same, I cannot help but think of that whenever I am there. These stones which my forefathers walked past on their pilgrimages to the Temple - who knows, perhaps some of my ancestors were even priests in the Temple, or market vendors selling pottery and livestock to the pilgrims.

Even more so than the stones though, the mount which they support, the Temple Mount itself, is a physical symbol of the eternal Jewish people, the very soul of the Jewish nation. Three times a day I face the Temple Mount in prayer, just as my Jewish forebears have done for millennia. Thousands of years ago, this is the site on which the Temple stood, the centre and symbol of Jewish religious life, political sovereignty and freedom, the centre of the Jewish universe to which Jews made at least three pilgrimages a year. Centuries before Christianity or Islam even existed, my ancestors came to offer sacrifices at this site, recited Hebrew prayers at this site - the very same Psalms in the same language that I recited today by the remains of the Western Wall. And when invaders destroyed the Temple and forced the Jews into a millennia long exile, wherever they have wandered in the world, whether they were exiled to Babylon, Egypt, Spain, Russia, Britain, Iran, the USA or anywhere else, Jews have turned to face the Temple Mount and pray for a return to Zion and the redemption of the Jewish people.

Even more than the ancient stones, I am awed at the fact that I have been granted the privilege to stand right next to Judaism's holiest site, to look up upon the Mount itself, a site which for centuries millions of Jews have longed to see even just once in their lifetime, and which I can look upon with my own eyes whenever I choose to take the bus into Jerusalem.

No Jews are allowed to go up to the Mount itself, not since the intifada began in late September, sparked allegedly by a Jewish Israeli politician visiting the site. Following the 7th century Muslim Arab conquest of the Holy Land the Muslims built a mosque and shrine on the ruins of the Temple, claiming it as their own holy site and refusing to share the site with the Jews. For that matter, in modern times they refuse to even acknowledge that this is indeed a Jewish holy site at all, insisting that it is only holy for Muslims and that Jews have no history here. In order to avoid antagonising the Muslim world, Israel, since gaining control of the site from Jordan during the Six Day War, has granted the Muslim religious authorities control of the Temple Mount, forbidding Jews to pray at our holiest place in the world.

The Muslim authorities don't even really like Jews to visit the site, following around Jews who do so in case they try to mumble a prayer when no one is looking. It they catch you trying to pray they call the Israeli police and haul you off the site, or, if you're really unlikely they might beat you up. Muslim kids can play football on this holy site, non-Jewish visitors can picnic here, tourists can click their cameras and marvel at the beautiful Muslim shrines here, but Jews may not pray here.

Well, that's the way it is, the closest we can get is a building near the Mount which looks down onto it, or we can sneak up disguised as foreign tourists and whisper a prayer in our hearts while pretending to admire the view or photograph the golden Dome of the Rock, but it's better than nothing. At least we can freely get close and pray at the Western Wall below. Thirty-four years ago we couldn't even do this because the whole area was under Jordanian control and Jews were not allowed into Jerusalem's Old City at all. Today, except on the rare occasions when Palestinians riot on the Temple Mount and throw rocks down onto Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall, Jews can freely visit at least the Western Wall.

Well, at least for now I can go and gaze up upon the Mount whenever I want to. At least for now. There is a reason that I'm writing all this, and it isn't because I suddenly feel like waxing romantic about Jewish history. It's because suddenly a Jewish Israeli government is on the verge of doing the unthinkable - signing away the Temple Mount and most of the surrounding Old City to the Palestinians. So you say, I've just written that we don't really control the Temple Mount anyway, and at least we'll still have the Western Wall, what's the big deal? Well, here is the big deal. The Temple Mount is the focus of Jewish prayers, at the core of the Jewish soul, it is the heart of the Jewish nation, the nexus of Jewish identity, the symbol of Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem - it is in short big. A place like that is not something that you consider giving up even to a friendly neighbour who recognises your religious and historic rights to the site, let alone to a supposed "peace partner" who is right now acting more like an enemy and who denies that the site even has any connection to the Jewish people.

Right now Muslims are free to worship at the site, security permitting, Jews are in theory allowed to at least visit the site. If it comes under Palestinian control Jews won't even be able to visit, as was the case when it was under Jordanian rule. Aside from that, though today Jews may not be able to pray on the Temple Mount, the police guarding the area, protecting the Western Wall below from possible attacks from the Temple Mount above, are Israeli police. How would people feel about going to pray at the Western Wall knowing that instead there were Palestinian police up there, the ones who are currently taking potshots at Israeli homes and vehicles. Shall we say that Israelis don't really feel that comfortable with the idea?

And now you understand why it was that this morning I not only prayed at the Western Wall, I also wept at the Western Wall. Also known as the Wailing Wall, it is here that ever since the Temple was destroyed Jews have come and wept as they suffered the terrors and indignities of foreign rule and exile. Today for the first time in my life I joined the millions of Jews who have come to this wall and cried their hearts out. As I looked up at the Mount, looked at the Israeli police ensuring my safety, at the other Jews praying around me, I wondered sadly if this would be one of the last times I could come here freely and openly as an Israeli and as a Jew.

This week we celebrated Chanukah, commemorating the day some 2200 years ago when the Maccabees recaptured the Holy Temple from the pagan Syrian-Greek occupiers and rededicated it for Jewish worship. This Chanukah, for the first time, a government of the modern State of Israel voted to endorse a plan which would relinquish sovereignty over the site of the Temple to Israel's enemies.

If the Clinton agreement goes through the Western Wall and the adjacent Jewish Quarter of the Old City will become an isolated Israeli enclave surrounded by Palestinian-controlled areas. Israel will be allowed access to the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall via a narrow corridor along one edge of the Old City. According to the agreement the Palestinians will be obligated to allow Israelis free access to these sites.

In theory it sounds good enough - if Israel were signing an agreement with Switzerland perhaps. Unfortunately Israel is negotiating with Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. They have already been granted control of other Jewish holy sites which under the Oslo agreements they were bound to protect and allow free Jewish access to. So far they have ransacked Joseph's Tomb in Nablus/Shechem and built a mosque in its place and set fire to the ancient Shalom Al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho. The Palestinian minister in charge of religious affairs pledges that when they get control of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the burial place of Abraham and Sara, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leiah, they will not allow Jews to visit. The Palestinian press crows about how they hope to wrest Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem from Jewish control and do to it as they did to Joseph's Tomb. Palestinian negotiators refuse even to acknowledge that the Jews have any ties, historical, religious or otherwise, to the Temple Mount. This doesn't sound like peace to me. It certainly doesn't sound like people I want to entrust any more Jewish holy sites to, guarantees or no guarantees.

We've been through this before though. In the 1948-49 War of Independence the Jordanians took the Old City and besieged the Jewish Quarter whose defenders were eventually forced to surrender, and the surviving Jews were expelled from the Old City. Under the armistice agreement which ended the war Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan, with the Jordanians granted control of the Old City, including all the Jewish holy sites. Officially Jordan was to grant Jews free access to the Western Wall. In practice Israelis were not allowed to enter Jordanian-held Jerusalem and during 19 years of Jordanian rule Jews could not pray at their holy sites, including the Western Wall. In addition the Jordanians systematically desecrated Jewish holy sites, destroying almost every synagogue in the Old City and using the tombstones from the ancient Jewish cemetery on the nearby Mount of Olives to pave roads and build homes and latrines. Last year I worked as an editor for a professor writing a book on the history of this period, of divided Jerusalem from 1949 to 1967. It does not make for comforting reading.

Usually I come to the Old City with a sense of wonder, My mind reels with verses about Jerusalem from the bible, Jewish prayers and modern Hebrew literature. King David, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi and Naomi Shemer's words resound in my ears. I look up at the Western Wall and the Temple Mount above and I think of my great-grandparents and their great-grandparents and all the pious and learned Jews in generations before me, far more righteous than I, who have not merited to stand before this most sacred of all places. My heart fills with gratitude that I can so easily and freely visit the place for which my people have yearned for millennia. Today I wondered whether my children will ever stand where I stood today. Whether, please God, when I am old and grey I will be able to come and pray here like the elderly lady by my side. I wondered whether even in a few months time, this Pesah, one of the three pilgrimage festivals on which Jews from all over flock to Jerusalem, I will be able to come here as I do every pilgrimage festival. How could I help but weep at the prospect of a millennia-old prayer, a realised millennia-old prayer, being dashed, not by an enemy, but by our own Jewish Israeli government under pressure from America and Europe.

At the end of minha prayers on Shabbat afternoon many have the custom to recite Psalms 120-134. I managed the first few clearly, and then the tears began to come, slowly at first, and then uncontrollably as I read on. "My soul has had its fill of dwelling with those who hate peace. I am peace, but they are for war... I rejoiced when they said to me we will go to the House of God. Our feet stood within your gates, oh Jerusalem... Pray for the peace of Jerusalem... Peace be within your precincts and your palaces. For the sake of my brothers and friends I will say peace be yours... May God bless you from Zion and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life."

How can I read that in today's Jerusalem and not weep?

As I sat and cried over my siddur (prayer book) a young mother who was asking worshippers to offer special prayers for a seriously ill relative came and sat by me. "Everyone has her own burden to bear" she said. "It is forbidden to weep on Shabbat, we must rejoice the best we can." I tried to find a way to rejoice on the Sabbath but I have never been more frightened for the future of Israel.

Shavu'a tov,

Shots on our highway

Thursday, December 21, 2000

I know that I haven't written for a while. In part this is because I was out of the country for a few days and it's taken me a few more days to catch up with events here. To a large extent though it's because I feel as though I'm writing the same letter over and over again. So little of the news here makes it overseas that it's hard to shake the feeling that I have a responsibility to document each incident, even if only in a letter to friends and family. This task is so overwhelming that it has lately paralysed my ability to write at all. Just know that even if I have neither the time nor strength to mention even all the incidents in which Israelis are killed or wounded, let alone those in which the victims escape injury, the Palestinian attacks go on relentlessly, not always in the same form, sometimes more, sometimes less, but an ever present feature of daily life in many parts of Israel.

Tonight our main road from Modi'in to Jerusalem, route 443, became another statistic on the long list of Israeli roads targetted by Palestinian gunfire. A few minutes ago we heard the news that an Israeli driver was shot in the chest and killed by Palestinian gunmen in a drive-by shooting near the Jewish village of Beit Horon, en route to Modi'in. The victim was Eliyahu Cohen, a 30-year-old driving instructor who moved from Jerusalem to Modi'in two weeks ago. The car he was driving was riddled with fifteen bullets on the driver's side.

This isn't an obscure rural side road, this is a main road, recently widened and well lit. This is the route the Modi'in-Jerusalem bus takes, the route I took every day when I worked in Jerusalem last year. We have travelled this road scores of times, maybe even hundreds of times. Those who have visited us in Modi'in will have travelled it, passing the picturesque Jewish and Palestinian villages which line the route, climbing from the Modi'in area foothills to the Jerusalem mountains, passing by the tomb of the Prophet Samuel and entering Jerusalem via the Ramot neighbourhood. Imagine driving this route cautiously, fearing Palestinian rock throwers, anxiously noting where there are piles of stones by the roadside, signs of previous rock throwing attacks. Now imagine from this night onwards driving this road in terror that every passing car with Palestinian licence plates is the car of a terrorist ready to kill you, as is already the case on many other roads north-east of Modi'in where only last week three Israeli drivers were shot and wounded by Palestinian gunmen near the Jewish villages of Nili and Neve Tzuf (Halamish). Tonight's victim could have been God forbid friends or relatives or neighbours of ours, ordinary Israelis driving to and from work, university or school, going into Jerusalem for Hannukah celebrations or shopping or just driving for any number of reasons.

This may seem strange, with all the attacks lately, with all the Israelis killed and wounded by Palestinian gunmen on the roads in recent weeks, but even though I don't know the victim, this attack on such a familiar stretch of road, so close to home, 10 minutes drive from my door, has hit me harder than I imagined possible. Since the intifada began we have avoided this road because there have been several serious stoning attacks. However every so often there have been lulls in attacks on that road for a week or so and we've thought, OK, it's been pretty quiet lately, let's try that road again. The route is so much easier than taking the detour via the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway.

Only last night we went into Jerusalem to buy some Hannukah supplies. It was raining hard, and we seriously considered using route 443, after all it's straighter, recently widened and until the recent intifada, safer, than the main highway which twists and turns on the stretch which climbs through the Jerusalem mountains. In the end we decided that we'd rather risk a tortuous road in heavy rain than Palestinian rocks and firebombs.

Intellectually I knew that if this road has been stoned, even firebombed occasionally, it might be shot at as well, but still it just seemed too major a route for a drive-by shooting. Buses on this road are not the bullet proof buses that run the Gaza and Hebron routes. Buses on 443 are regular Israeli buses that you'd find anywhere in the country. Perhaps I'm shaken even more than usual simply because in theory this could have been me. I can see the road so clearly in my mind's eye, I can visualise the spot where the shooting took place so vividly. This is the road where I could never concentrate on reading my book because I loved watching the countryside, the shepherds with their flocks of sheep and goats, chukar partridges ambling over the slopes, the occasiona fox or even a jackal, the landscape changing with the seasons. Around now the rocky slopes are lush and green after the rains and there are occasional splashes of pink where the first cyclamen are in bloom - and now red stains marking the stretch of road where Eliahu Cohen was shot to death.

This road was proposed to be, indeed may yet be, divided between Israeli and Palestinian control, with the Modi'in and Giv'at Zeev sections under Israeli control, and the middle section, the part bordered by Palestinian villages, under Palestinian control. Somehow we don't feel so comfortable with this proposal right now.

In one of many other shooting attacks tonight Palestinian gunmen fired from the Palestinian-controlled town of Kalkilya into Israel hitting a car near kibbutz Ayal, close to the town of Kfar Saba. Another area, which like Modi'in, has gone from sleepy 'middle Israel' to jittery border town Israel.

Meanwhile Israeli leaders are sitting in Washington negotiating with Palestinian leaders such as Mohammed Dahlan, a senior commander of the Palestinian security forces in Gaza, and one of those responsible for the continued shooting attacks against Israelis. Even as the shooting continues unabated Israeli prime minister Barak is offering ever more concessions to the Palestinians, such as half of Jerusalem, including most of the Old City and control of the Temple Mount, Judaism's most sacred site, over 90% of the West Bank including many of Judaism's holiest sites, all of Gaza and chunks of pre-1967 Israel, and the absorption of 150,000 Palestinian refugees from Lebanon and elsewhere into Israel. The continuing bombardment of Gilo does not exactly make Israelis feel comfortable about the prospect of more areas in which the Palestinian security forces will have a free reign. When Arafat and his militias have control of all the Arab areas in and bordering Jerusalem he won't just be able to shoot at Gilo, he'll be able target the Kotel (Western Wall), Ramot, Talpiot, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, the edge of Meah She'arim (Shivtei Yisrael), even parts of central Jerusalem. The Hebrew University and Hadassah hospital on Mount Scopus and the ancient Jewish Mount of Olives cemetery will be surrounded by Palestinian territory, easy targets for Palestinian snipers. As it is, since the intifada funerals on the Mount of Olives have been carried out in bullet proof hearses.

Over seven years of the Oslo peace process Israeli leaders have convinced the nation that giving more authority and more territorial concessions to the Palestinians will bring Israel peace, but the recent months' experience have shown that they have only brought us closer to war and the fragile existence which was Israel's lot 33 years ago . Statements by the Palestinian leadership make it quite clear that they intend to continue the violence against Israelis. Yet our government sends negotiators to Washington to continue along the same plan, without even insisting on a ceasefire or demanding enhanced security guarantees. Since Barak declared elections recently, many Israelis fear that he is now just trying to force through a quick agreement with the Palestinians so that he can face the electorate with a treaty in hand, possibly the only way that he can expect to win. Few Israelis feel that rushing into a hasty agreement under the pressure of elections and continued Palestinian gunfire is going to bring the country the peace and security Israelis yearn for. I only wish that I could be more optimistic.

Wishing you happy Hanukah and merry Christmas to my Christian friends. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Shabbat Shalom,

Sorry to bore you...

Friday, December 1, 2000

I got a message from a friend in Europe recently complaining that my recent letters are rather boring. You know what, she's right. I'm sorry for all the lists of attacks and casualties - I guess that after two months they do make rather boring reading - but that is what is happening here. I guess if you don't live here it's just a list, more random foreign news but for us, right now this is our lives. As most of them don't seem to make the foreign media I figured they might be worth mentioning.

I'd much rather be writing about the weather, the concert I went to last week, the movies, my students, the good book that I'm reading, the fun I'm having with the new camera my uncle gave me.... Life was certainly much less eventful when the traffic reports didn't include roads closed due to shooting or rioting, when we would phone some friends for a chat instead of anxiously checking up on people living 'on the front line', and when we went to sleep reading a good book or listening to music instead of hearing that evening's tally of attacks and casualties.

Late September, October and November are among the most pleasant months of the year. The weather cools down pleasantly after the summer heat, while the first rains of autumn turn the parched brown landscape green and bring the first wildflowers of the season. The trees are heavy with ripe fruit: olives, pomegranates, figs, dates, pears, mangos and more. Thousands of birds from northern latitudes make their way to Israel for the winter, and thousands more pass through on their way south to Africa. This is an ideal time for hikes, going to the beach, stargazing and enjoying nature. It's not for nothing that God gave the Jewish people some of our major festivals in the autumn, this most pleasant of Israeli seasons.

I should be writing letters about our activities over the religious holidays and the wonderful performances we've been to, about the music and theatre festivals this time of year, about the first flowers of the rainy season I've seen in the surrounding countryside, about the first wintering birds that I've spotted, about the nights growing cold, about trying to remember where we packed our winter clothes and the electric heaters.

This autumn though small everyday decisions have become far less mundane. Driving to Jerusalem Saturday night for a concert (yes, we still go to those, have to keep our spirits up...) we ruled out our usual route because there have been several attacks there lately. Actually we haven't taken it since the troubles began. Only last Friday an Israeli civilian was hurt on that road by a rock thrown at her car by local Palestinians. There were bad traffic jams on the main alternative route though, possibly worsened by so many motorists nervous about using the other highway. In the end we bypassed the traffic jam via a complicated back route on a tortuous rural mountain road running vaguely parallel with the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway.

At least there we have alternate routes to take. In other parts of the country there aren't safe alternatives. This will sound trivial, but we have a voucher for a discounted weekend away in various guesthouses across the country. We were saving it to use for our anniversary, planning to spend the weekend somewhere up north in the lovely Beit She'an valley area. Well, that area has been safe lately, but the problem is getting there. There are two routes. The most direct is via the Jordan Valley, on the Jericho bypass road. A short stretch of that road which goes through the Palestinian-controlled village of Ouja has frequently been targeted by Palestinian rock-throwers and even gunmen. Just a few days ago a roadside bomb was detonated there. In recent weeks concerned citizens from other parts of the country have formed a volunteer organisation with jeeps and other large vehicles which provide escorts for people who need to drive on the Jordan Valley road. The principle is safety in numbers, as single cars are more often targeted than convoys.

The alternative, longer, route is via the Galilee on the Wadi `Ara/Nahal `Iyron road, which passes several Israeli Arab villages. Lately, some of their residents have taken to throwing rocks and sometimes firebombs at passing vehicles, and occasionally blocking the highway with burning tires. The stoning of a bus by Israeli Arabs near the Israeli Arab village of Fureidis, near Zikhron Ya'akov, on Tuesday night in which a passenger was wounded is typical of the attacks taking place daily on roads which pass Arab villages in the Galilee. It's probably safer than the Jericho route, but who wants to take the risk for a weekend away? These two trouble spots have pretty much cut Israel in two from north to south.

Of course, with Israelis getting killed and injured almost every day, and many more living under siege or constant gunfire, our concern about a weekend away is trifling. The point is that even for many of us who aren't living right on the `front line', the intifada is still part of our daily lives, so that taking a weekend drive becomes a weighty decision.

In better times many of you commented that your favourite parts of my letters were my descriptions of our weekends away around Israel, or our Friday morning hiking trips to the Dead Sea and other scenic areas. One of our greatest delights is to just pick a spot on the map and spend a Friday morning or Thursday evening exploring our small, but wonderfully diverse country, learning every little country road, every hill, every flower, every bird, every biblical landmark, each archeological site. There is a reason my letters have turned from fun descriptions of hikes around the country to lists of attacks. This is, tragically, the new reality in which we live. If only it were otherwise. Despite it all, yes, we still take some trips, but we're very careful about where we go - we don't just wander freely anymore.

One of my pastimes lately, and not a pleasant one, is listening to the radio in time for almost every hourly newscast. After Israelis were killed almost every day last week, things `quietened' down a bit for a few days. That means Palestinian shooting and rock throwing continue, as does the detonating of roadside bombs, but that mercifully there have been far lower casualties. In fact there have actually been more attacks over the past few days, with a new intifada `record' set between noon yesterday and today: 57 shooting attacks. However we have now tragically grown so used to this terrible situation that even the Israeli news outlets have become bored of it, devoting a couple of sentences to the day's incidents and then going on with parliamentary politics or world AIDS day - unless of course, God forbid, someone is killed or very seriously injured in one of the day's dozens of attacks.

Continuing attempts to reach a ceasefire have failed. Over the last two weeks Barak and Arafat have spoken by phone, and Israeli cabinet minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak has been to Gaza to meet with Arafat and Palestinian Preventative Security chief Mohammed Dahlan, but to no avail.

On Sunday we buried Ariel Jarafeh and Major Sharon Arameh. Jarafeh, aged 42 and a father of three from Petah Tikva, is the civilian shot dead last Friday when Palestinian gunmen ambushed his car as he passed the Palestinian village of Usarin, near the Jewish village of Migdalim southeast of Shekhem/Nablus. Arameh, 25, from Ashkelon was killed when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israeli army post in Gaza. He leaves behind a 22-year-old widow and their baby son.

Another Israeli soldier, 27-year-old St.Sgt Khalil Taher of `Akko, was killed Sunday morning by a roadside bomb detonated by Lebanese Hizballah guerrillas on the Israeli patrol road, almost a kilometre within Israel's northern border with Lebanon. Two other Israeli soldiers were wounded in the explosion. Hizballah released a statement saying that "The attack is in support of the Palestinian intifada and to inaugurate the holy month of Ramadan, the month of Muslim victories". Taher, a tracker, was leading the patrol and so took the brunt of the blast. He leaves a pregnant wife, Inam, and an 18-month-old son.

Taher's family are Muslim Bedouin who live in the northern Israeli city of `Akko. Though Arabs are not conscripted into the Israeli army, like many other Bedouin the sons of the family volunteered, four serving as trackers and one in the air force. Taher served in the same unit as another Galilee Bedouin, Sgt Omar Suwaid, one of the three Israeli soldiers kidnapped from Israel's northern border by Hizbullah in October. Taher was buried in `Akko's Muslim cemetery. In an interview on the radio this morning Mohammed, Khalil's father, said that since Khalil was killed in action many Muslim neighbours of the Taher family have been boycotting the family, refusing to pay condolence calls and ignoring family members in the street. Mohammed said that he couldn't understand why his Muslim neighbours were friendly to him, knowing that he had six sons serving in the Israeli army, and yet now that Khalil has been killed they are giving him the cold shoulder. He said that the Taher family have also received threatening phone calls from Arabs in `Akko. In addition the imam of `Akko, the senior Muslim religious leader in the town, refused to officiate at the funeral of the soldier, even though as a state employee of the religious affairs ministry he is required to. The religious affairs ministry is investigating the case and considering taking disciplinery measures against the imam.

In response to the Hizballah attack Israel fired missiles at Hizballah bases along the border with Israel. UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force stationed in South Lebanon which is supposed to keep the peace, once again proved totally ineffective. It has been no more useful in preventing Lebanese citizens from standing by the border fence and throwing rocks, bottles and sometimes firebombs over the fence into Israel. Israeli cabinet minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak commented, "It is doubtful that UNIFIL can prevent such attacks." In past weeks Hizballah and Palestinian gunmen near the border have fired shots into Israel and thrown grenades over the border.

Last Friday night an attack came from yet another direction when an armed Palestinian terrorist infiltrated Israel from Jordan. He was discovered and caught near the Jordan Valley village of Argaman. There have also been several attempted infiltrations into Israel from Palestinian-controlled areas, especially from Palestinian-controlled Gaza into the nearby Israeli agricultural communities. Fortunately Israeli patrols have succeeded in preventing such infiltrations. Several Palestinian gunmen, including members of the Palestinian security forces, were killed and injured this week in battles along the Gaza perimeter fence while trying to infiltrate into Israel.

Israelis soldiers and civilians continue to be wounded on a regular basis by Palestinian ambushes on Israeli roads bordering Palestinian-controlled areas. On Wednesday, an Israeli civilian, Avraham Alon, 50, of Tapuah, was critically wounded by Palestinian sniper fire as his car passed the Palestinian village of Usarin, almost the exact same spot where Ariel Jarafe was killed in a similar attack last Friday. Palestinian sniper attacks have taken place in many other areas too. Fortunately in most cases the Israelis managed to escape with "only" bullet-damaged cars. In several places in Gaza and the West Bank roadside bombs have been set off by Palestinians as Israeli vehicles pass. In some areas the Israeli army has begun uprooting roadside orchards and plantations which are used by Palestinians as cover for attacks on Israeli vehicles.

Rock throwing continues in many places, both near Palestinian areas, and on roads close to Israeli Arab villages. Several Israelis were injured in the last few days as result. Buses, which are of course large and relatively slow moving, seem to be favourite targets. Israeli ambulances were stoned on Tuesday by Palestinians, this time in Gush Etzion and in northeastern Jerusalem near Atarot. Forty-two Israeli ambulances to be damaged by stone throwing since the intifada began. So far 7 ambulances have been so badly damaged that they are beyond repair; replacements cost $70,000 each.

Last night an Israeli ambulance was firebombed by local Arabs while driving through the Wadi Joz neighbourhood of Jerusalem. The ambulance was en route to the scene of a car accident in the mostly Arab neighbourhood of Ras el Amud, on the Mount of Olives. Palestinian gunfire continues at various Israeli residential areas, as well as at joint Israeli-Palestinian industrial zones which are located in many areas bordering Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Amongst the neighbourhoods targeted in recent days is, once again, Gilo in southern Jerusalem, where several apartments were hit. In one case a bullet ripped into a fridge door just as 13-year-old Liat Eldad was opening it, whizzing over her head and embedding itself in the fridge. She fainted from fright, while her three sisters, also in the kitchen at the time, had hysterics, and her mother was taken to hospital to be treated for shock.

In a gesture of solidarity with the beleaguered neighbourhood, Israeli President Moshe Katzav and his wife spent Tuesday night staying over with a family on Anafa Street, which directly faces the Palestinian-controlled town of Beit Jalla and has been one of the main targets of Palestinian snipers. Likud party Knesset Members Ze'ev Boim and Uzi Landau have moved in to the neighbourhood permanently in a show of support for Gilo residents.

This week was the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, during which Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and other physical pleasures during the daylight hours, and break their fasts after dark each day with feasts and celebrations. Many Muslims who are not especially devout during the rest of the year are more pious during Ramadan, for example taking more care to attend prayers, and on Fridays the mosques are more crowded than usual.

As a goodwill gesture the Israeli government eased restrictions on Palestinian controlled areas, re-opening border crossings between Israel and Palestinian-controlled Gaza, and restoring the flow of non-humanitarian goods, such as building supplies. Israel has also permitted the Dahaniya airport in Gaza to re-open, as in the last few days the Palestinians have not launched attacks from that area. If the attacks from Dahaniya resume Israel will close the airport once again. We hope that the relaxing of these restrictions will not be used by the Palestinian Authority to smuggle in more weapons and ammunition, the original reason for the blocking the transportation of all but humanitarian supplies into Palestinian-controlled Gaza.

Meanwhile as it became clear this week that the Israeli government has finally lost the confidence of parliament Israel will be holding new elections in a few months time. Polls indicate that prime minister Barak's only chance of reelection is to go into elections having reached a peace agreement. Otherwise the opposition, which has always been sceptical of the Palestinians readiness for real peace with Israel, seem to have the upper hand in the polls. Like many other Israelis, I fear Barak, under election pressures, may rush into a poorly thought out deal with Palestinians leader Yasser Arafat, a deal that could result in making the current situation even worse.

There is so much more to add, but it's already taken me a week to write this and I've had a mild fever this week which I'm sure hasn't eased the task.

As I write this there was just a news flash reporting that a bus was fired upon in northern Jerusalem, the first shooting attack on Israeli vehicles in Jerusalem itself. Palestinian gunmen apparently infiltrated from Palestinian-controlled Ramallah to the Jerusalem Arab neighbourhood of Beit Hanina and fired from there onto the major French Hill junction. The bus, number 178 to Shiloh, was fortunately a bullet proof bus, as there have been several attacks on the road to Shiloh recently. That is what saved the lives of those on board and none were injured, though the unprotected baggage compartment was riddled with bullet holes. Thank God that it wasn't an ordinary Jerusalem bus, which would not have had a reinforced passenger section and bullet proof windows.

We keep hoping and praying for better days.

Ceasefire anyone?

Friday, November 24, 2000

As you probably all know by now, on Wednesday a large car bomb exploded in the centre of the Israeli coastal city of Hadera, north of Netanya. Two civilians, 20-year-old Shoshana Reiss and 34-year-old Meir Brami, were killed and 62 were injured, several seriously.

Wednesday afternoon at about 4:50pm I was on the verge of sending out another letter when I decided to wait until after the 5pm news, just to see if there were any new developments. By 5:25pm the news was winding down with reports on the US elections and the usual end-of-bulletin lighter items. Just then one of Channel 2's correspondents appeared in the studio, glued to his mobile phone, as the news anchor said something about preliminary reports of an explosion in Hadera.

Even from those initial reports it was clear that this was a big bomb, heard from miles away, rattling windows in every corner of the town. Here we go again, I thought. I didn't need to see the pictures from the scene. Sadly, like all Israelis and many Jews around the world, I know it by heart: the burnt-out cars and buses, the shattered windows, damaged shops with their smoke-blackened wares scattered over the bloodied pavement and, in the midst of it all, the wounded trapped by twisted metal or sitting dazed and bleeding on the sidewalk where only seconds earlier they had been going about their business. Once again Palestinian terrorists have brought death and destruction to the very heart of ordinary Israel, to a typical sleepy, middle of the road Israeli town.

This isn't the first time that Hadera has been bombed. Earlier this year a small bomb went off near the town's shuk (market) wounding 21. I remember clearly the bus bombing perpetrated by a Hamas suicide bomber in 1994. It was April, on Yom Hazikaron, Israel's Memorial Day for all those who have fallen in the many wars and terrorist attacks which have been our lot since even before the state was founded. Jason had proposed to me less than a week earlier and we were eagerly discussing wedding plans. All around Israel the bus terminals were crowded with people going to memorial ceremonies and students and soldiers going home for the next day's Independence Day holiday. I was in Jerusalem that morning, on a bus on the way to meet Jason. The driver usually has the radio on in Israeli buses, and I wasn't really listening that carefully, but suddenly the announcer's voice changed, reporting that a bomb had gone off in Hadera's central bus station. Five people were killed in that bombing, and dozens more were injured.

On Wednesday another Palestinian bomber returned those scenes to Hadera, with its drab concrete low rise buildings, sun-bleached pavements, small stores and sea breezes. Like almost every population centre in Israel, Hadera is within easy reach of Palestinian-controlled areas. Hadera also has many Israeli Arab neighbours, such as the village of Baka el Gharbiya, who have traditionally had friendly relations with the town. As with the Jewish villages in the area, residents of nearby Arab villages come to work in the town, shop there and rely on Hadera's services. Some own shops and businesses there too.

Among the Israelis injured by Wednesday's bomb were Husam abu Husain and his baby daughter Thara, who suffered burns over 15% of her body and is currently in critical condition at the special burns unit in Haifa's Rambam hospital. Her father has been moved from Hadera's hospital to Haifa to be near her. The two had gone to Hadera for pizza, and were in the pizzeria when it was destroyed by the blast. Seventeen year old Avihai Peretz, who was working in the family pizza shop, was also critically injured. He was airlifted to Haifa's hospital with severe head injuries. Tzafrira Levi, aged 72, who owns a household goods store on the same street, was also among the seriously wounded. Her shop, her life's work, was damaged beyond repair. In total thirty shops and businesses were damaged, along with 100 homes. Several buildings were so seriously damaged that they will have to be pulled down.

Each day's news brings new tragedies. On Thursday an Israeli soldier, Lt Edward Metchnik, 21, of Be'er Sheva, was killed and two of his comrades and a Palestinian police officer wounded when an explosion took place in the Israeli section of the joint Israeli-Palestinian liaison office (DCO) in Neveh Dekalim, Gaza. The DCOs are staffed by Israeli and Palestinian officers, whose role is to coordinate arrangements for humanitarian situations and the like. Despite the current troubles, these liaison offices have continued to operate, with relations between the Israeli and Palestinian staff remaining good, often friendly.

At about noon Thursday, the Palestinian officers suddenly started leaving their side of the DCO building, some complaining that they didn't feel well. One Palestinian officer, who was meeting with the Israelis at the time, saw his colleagues running away and suggested to the Israelis that something may be wrong. He and the Israeli officers started leaving the building when the bomb went off. It appears that the bomb was planted on the wall separating the Israeli and Palestinian sides of the office. Israel's regional commander Col. Shlomo Dagan called the attack "disgraceful", as the DCOs are the primary remaining channel for Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, in particular on humanitarian matters. Israeli deputy defence minister Ephraim Sneh remarked that the DCOs are among the few places where Israeli and Palestinian flags fly side by side, with all that symbolises, and now the Palestinians have blown up the Israeli side. In response, Israel concluded it could no longer trust its counterparts in the DCOs and asked the Palestinians to leave the buildings, which they have refused to do. Israel has said it will not force the issue.

In another incident Thursday an Israeli soldier, Sgt Samer Hussein, 19, from the Galilee village of Hurfesh, was killed and his comrade critically wounded by Palestinian gunfire shot from Palestinian-controlled Gaza at an Israeli position on the Israeli side of the perimeter fence. Israel returned fire, killing a Palestinian policeman and wounding another. Earlier that day two bombs went off in the same area, near the fence of Kibbutz Erez. Israeli soldiers opened fire on the bombers, killing one and injuring another who was later captured.

On Tuesday an Israeli civilian was killed only a few dozen meters from the site of Monday's bus bombing near Kfar Darom. Itamar Yefet, 18, was hit in the head by a single shot from a Palestinian sniper hiding in roadside bushes as he drove from his home village of Netzer Hazani to Kfar Darom to pay a condolence call to the families of Monday's bombing victims.

Last night Palestinian gunmen in Beit Jala resumed their assault on Gilo, hitting seven apartments. No one was wounded, though there were some close calls. Other Jewish residential areas which have come under Palestinian fire in the last few nights include Psagot, Beit El, Elon Moreh and the fishing village of Duggit in northern Gaza. The Jewish holy site of Rachel's Tomb, near Gilo, was fired upon from Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem.

Several Israelis were wounded over the last three nights when their vehicles were attacked by Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. Last night Palestinians threw firebombs at two Israeli buses travelling near Samuel's Tomb north of Jerusalem, injuring two yeshiva students. Two nights ago a firebomb was thrown at an Israeli bus as it passed the Israeli Arab village of Majd el Krum, en route to the Jewish town of Karmiel in the Galilee. Two passengers were wounded. Four passengers were hurt when a train was stoned by Arabs while passing through an Arab neighbourhood of the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Ramle, west of Modi'in. Two Israeli civilians were wounded by Palestinian rock throwers when their car was hit on the road to Beitar Illit south of Jerusalem. On Wednesday night a resident of Psagot was lightly wounded when bullets hit his car as Palestinians in the Palestinian-controlled town of El-Bireh opened fire on the Psagot access road. Last night two roadside bombs were detonated as a bus drove past on the tunnel road, south of Jerusalem. Fortunately the bus was empty, though the driver was lightly wounded. These are only a selection of the dozens of attacks which take place every night on Israeli vehicles travelling near Palestinian and some Israeli Arab areas. Thankfully most attacks miss their targets, while many Israelis manage to escape with "only" a rock-smashed windshield or a bullet-riddled car or bomb-damaged bus, but that doesn't make the sheer volume of attacks any less serious.

Over the last few days the Israeli army has succeeded in preventing several attacks and in capturing their perpetrators. For example, on Tuesday soldiers of the Golani brigade discovered a Palestinian terror cell planting a roadside bomb near the Kisufim crossing in Gaza. The other night Israeli soldiers managed to capture the Palestinian gunmen who have been firing upon Jewish vehicles near Kalkilya and Alfei Menashe. Israeli police have also arrested several Palestinians responsible for rock throwing and firebombings in the Shomron area, west of Nablus/Shekhem. Among those caught were a Palestinian police officer and a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, one of the more radical factions of the PLO.

On Tuesday morning Israeli soldiers set up a roadblock near the Jewish village of Morag in southern Gaza, in the hope of catching other wanted militiamen responsible for attacks against Israelis over past weeks. When a car whose occupants were identified as Fatah Tanzim militiamen tried to charge the checkpoint the soldiers opened fire, killing the Tanzim men. I was shocked to see foreign news reports describe this as an unprovoked Israeli attack on unarmed Palestinian civilians, and portray the killing of these armed terrorists running a roadblock as morally equivalent to the killing of Israeli civilians on Hadera's main street.

In what is becoming a familiar pattern, Arafat last night hinted that he might be interested in a ceasefire. Deputy defence minister Ephraim Sneh met secretly with senior Palestinian officials, including Arafat's chief of staff, to discuss a possible ceasefire, possibly along the lines of the plan that US secretary of state Madeleine Albright presented to Yasser Arafat. One point of the Albright plan proposes buffer zones between Israeli and Palestinian-controlled areas. The Americans have yet to clarify what this means:who would maintain these buffer zones? Obviously the Palestinians would not accept an Israeli presence, and in recent days Israel has lost all faith in the Palestinian security forces. It seems Albright may be considering a multinational force under US auspices, akin to what Arafat has been demanding for the last two months, to "protect" the Palestinians from Israeli "aggression". Israel is vehemently opposed to such an arrangement. Previous experience with such forces, for example in Lebanon, has shown that they do nothing to prevent attacks on Israelis, while intervening when Israel tries to defend itself against attack. They are used by the other side as human shields from which to attack Israel, while Israel cannot respond for fear of hitting the international observers. If this is what Albright has in mind, it is the equivalent of rewarding the Palestinians for starting this campaign of violence. Why should aggressors get "protection" against the people they're attacking?!

Will there be a ceasefire? Who knows. A pattern seems to have developed whereby after a major Palestinian attack, which may be expected to draw an Israeli response, Arafat suddenly indicates interest in a ceasefire. Israel calls off its response and pulls back its forces, only to see the Palestinians take advantage of the lull to improve their positions and resume attacks with greater vehemence. Quite frankly we no longer trust Arafat nor have any faith in his ceasefires, and many Israelis doubt whether we'll ever be able to reach a peace agreement with him.

On a more positive note, on Wednesday morning the mukhtars (community leaders) of several Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem visited Gilo to express solidarity with the local residents who have come under Palestinian sniper fire for weeks now. The visit was organised by Ayoub Kara, a Knesset Member from the right-wing opposition Likud party. Kara, a member of the Israel's Arabic-speaking Druze religious minority, has been instrumental in developing cooperation between Jewish and Arab community leaders in Jerusalem. The delegation was led by Zuhair Hamdan, mukhtar of Sur Baher, an Arab village adjacent to the Jewish neighbourhood of Talpiot, with which Hamdan worked to foster good relations. Hamdan has also been a leading figure in resisting Prime Minister Barak's plans to hand over Jerusalem's Arab neighbourhoods to Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, as proposed during July's Camp David talks. Hamdan has called for a referendum allowing Jerusalem Arabs to choose whether they want to be ruled by Arafat or remain under Israeli sovereignty. In general, Jerusalem's Arabs have not participated in the current violence against Israelis, with many of the incidents in Jerusalem perpetrated by Arabs from Palestinian-ruled areas.

Other mukhtars on the Gilo visit were from Beit Hanina, Anata and Bet Safafa. Bet Safafa adjoins Gilo and enjoys warm relations with the Jewish neighbourhood. The house of Bet Safafa's mukhtar was recently firebombed by Palestinians who resent his friendship with Israelis. The mukhtars called for an end to the suffering of the residents of Gilo and Beit Jala, neighbouring areas which traditionally have had peaceful relations, and called upon Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak to return to negotiations. They hope to visit Palestinian-controlled Beit Jala as well. It's heartwarming to see community leaders work for peace in this way. Hamdan said he thinks it's important for local leaders to do their part in easing tensions.

As I finally conclude this letter, the radio just reported that an Israeli civilian was shot and killed by Palestinians who ambushed his car near the Jewish village of Migdalim southeast of Shekhem/Nablus. He was shot in the stomach. His name has yet to be released as his family have not yet been notified.

Shabbat Shalom,