Scars
According to our friends at Brittanica, Terrorism is defined as: “The calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective. Terrorism has been practiced by political organizations with both rightist and leftist objectives, by nationalistic and religious groups, by revolutionaries, and even by state institutions.”
My first experience with terrorism came when I was 15 years old and I was near San Sebastian in Spain. It was 1984. A group known as “ETA” Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, an armed paramilitary Basque separatist movement was quite well known in the region. On April 13th two policemen were killed with a car bomb, and the same day a retired army commander was shot in Pamplona. I spent the summer of 1984 there, and I recall running through the streets with a number of locals when fears rose that another attack was imminent. As a Bostonian, I remember reading about Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army in the 80’s and 90’s. When I was young, Boston was thought of as an “Irish town” and I recall hearing arguments and seeing street fights both for and against the IRA. Of course, on February 26th, 1993 Ramzi Yousef tried to blow up the World Trade Center and then on April 19th, 1995 Timothy McVeigh carried out one of the worst acts of domestic terrorism when he killed 168 people in Oklahoma City. By the turn of the millenium, I thought I had seen it all and then came 9-11. Living 30 miles from Manhattan, we felt this on a personal level, and it became apparent to me terrorism could strike anywhere and everywhere. So you might ask if I was surprised by October 7th? No, I was not. I have felt for a long time that something like this was coming. The level of depravity surprised me, the fact that Israel’s government was asleep at the wheel surprised me, and the level of anti-Semitism across the globe surprised me. The attack did not surprise me.
Last week there were more than 400 “threats” across the United States to synagogues and other Jewish institutions. https://www.wbaltv.com/article/jewish-facilities-false-bomb-threats-weekend/46168920#. 257 anti-Semitic attacks in Paris alone in the 30 days that followed October 7th. Paris is a city with one of the world’s largest Jewish populations. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/06/antisemitic-acts-have-exploded-in-france-since-7-october-interior-minister-says. While all this is going on, we continue to get bombarded by missiles on a daily basis, but the media prefers not to report on this. It made me think about the definition of terrorism and the scars we have been left with creating that “climate of fear…..”
I previously shared in this journal an incursion that occurred in our village in October, after the war began. The families that live here, 35 miles from the Gaza border are still on edge. Sure, there are some with their heads in the cloud. Those are the same people you see on the news that always say, “I never imagined something like this could happen here. It’s such a lovely neighborhood.” I’m sure you’ve seen those same reports whether they be in Maine or Barcelona. So this past Friday night we’re at synagogue, as we are every Friday night. We are signing our hearts out. Yes, five young men – all in their 20’s – from the neighboring city of Beit Shemesh have lost their lives in the last few weeks, and despite all of the sadness around us we are singing because it is the Sabbath, and we are rejoicing with the Lord. All of a sudden, we hear three massive booms. We are in the middle of “Lecha Dodi” – a beautiful song which we sing at the start of the Sabbath. Then a blackout. Pitch black. We keep singing because that’s what we do, but the thought is already in my head. I am at my friend Aariel’s house. We are praying in his living room as his whole family is there celebrating the birth of his new grandson. I start pacing. Aariel can see I’m agitated, as he has known me for many years. “Go,” he says. “Go home.” He knows what I am thinking, and I know what my wife is thinking. We live a few houses from Aariel so I’m home quickly, my gun at the ready. Although it is the Sabbath – when we do not use electricity or the internet, I start to prepare my home. I won’t go into details here for reasons you can understand, but I’m moving quickly. Open the safe, get the flashlights, prepare a few items, check the news. The internet is out. Strange. It’s clear the blackout is all over the region as the village on the next hill is completely dark apart from the lights of a police car. A debate ensues. Turn the flashlights on so we can see or keep them off so we cannot be seen. We cannot close the shutters on the windows as they are electric so they will remain open. There are only three of us in the home – along with our three dogs. I make sure all the doors are locked and the three of us are prepared for whatever will come next. I can see the drone I helped to purchase for my village up in the air checking the perimeter and our security patrol from the village is out on the streets, not as quickly as I would have liked, but they are taking nothing for granted.
The minutes tick by. I go out to the street. Back inside, questions persist. Have we been invaded? What is going on? We have blackouts all the time, but they usually last five – seven minutes. This one lasts about 90 minutes. We are hearing more booms, unsure if they are missiles hitting us or the Iron Dome doing its job. Yet the darkness, the eerie quiet and the scars of October 7th live with us. So we are in what I will call “preparedness” for close to 90 minutes. Some of my neighbors might laugh at this story. Some will relate and many did exactly what we did. Then in the blink of an eye, the power came on and the booms stopped. We found out later the next day a missile hit minutes away from our home, and it impacted the electrical grid. So those that set out to cause “terror” on October 7th achieved their goal – in a sense. They have changed us. They have changed how we live. They have changed how we view the world. They have changed how we act.
The scars that were left won’t go away any time soon, but we will still sing when we welcome the Sabbath, and we will still find reasons to rejoice. Most assuredly, whatever absurd “political objectives” Hamas thought they would achieve on October 7th will never be achieved. Brittanica may be right about the fear and the violence, but nothing good has been achieved. No political objective and they have most certainly set back any agenda they had by a couple of decades if not permanently. For the very people they attacked were their most ardent supporters. What have they left us with? They have left us with scars.
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I have shared with you some videos from a man by the name of Eli Katzoff. If you have the time, this is truly something worth watching as it will give you a feel for what Eli has seen and experienced over the last couple of months: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N-cZvVMYIs
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David
David at People for Israel
USA: +1.201.801.6440
Israel: +972.52.705.6300
david@peopleforisrael.com
www.peopleforisrael.com
Since October 7, 2023
