Sirens and sadness

Thanks to everyone who has called, sent texts, or emailed.

Yes, what you are seeing on the news is happening. The dispute in Gaza has reached into the north of Israel. Late this afternoon I was having tea and cakes with my friend, Christina (my first friend also called Christina) at the Inbal Hotel, around the corner from my house and just southwest of the Old City.

We had settled into the cozy and mostly empty (as is the usual on Shabbat evening) Sofia cafe. The waitress had just delivered our tea and cakes. Christina and her husband are heading to the States early next week for Thanksgiving. She was telling me about their itinerary when we heard the air raid siren. It was about quarter to 5.

We looked at each other, heads cocked quizzically and said, "was that an air siren?"

"Yes," said the hotel security manager. "Please stay put for the next ten minutes and I'll try to find out more."

The first 90 seconds are the scariest and most surreal -- that's the amount of time between the air siren and the expected hit.  In theory, you have about 90 seconds to find shelter -- an inside room, a staircase. We stayed on the sofa in the cafe. I thought about what it might have been like to live through the Blitz in London -- I have heard stories from older friends who were kids in London in the early 1940s. Then, the remaining 510 seconds (of the 10 minutes) were filled with nervous chatter about what this means for our lives in Israel. (We both arrived in September and expect to be here for about a year.) What does it mean? We spent the next hour discussing that and I still don't know.

Well, first it is a shock of sorts to everyone because Jerusalem is usually considered to be safely beyond the reach of rocket attacks from Gaza. (We're close to Jordan, but Israel has a long standing peace agreement with Jordan. And, incidentally, does with Egypt, too, but now that Mubarak is no longer around it may be more fragile). But, as we saw with the hit near Tel Aviv yesterday, Hamas has upgraded its rockets. How close the rocket landed to Jerusalem is a bit unclear right now,  an Israeli radio station has (apparently, for I do not comprehend Hebrew) reported that the rocket that activated the Jerusalem air siren hit just south of Bethelem. The air raid sirens respond to hits within a 50km radius.  Second, Jerusalem is not only a Jewish city. At least one third of the population is Palestinian. That Jerusalem is vulnerable to rocket attacks from Gaza is not insignificant, but it may be more a case of posturing rather than the start of a sustained attack. The stakes are so high in Jerusalem, any damage to the Old City would be catastrophic.

Next, my frame of mind. This week, while things in Gaza were heating up, I was at a workshop called "Open City Jerusalem". It was attended by Israelis and Palestinians who were there to talk about the future of Jerusalem. Both Israelis and Palestinians want Jerusalem as the capital of their state -- the workshop was exploring if there is a way to make it happen. The conversations were often heated and the groups talked past each other and clearly had (and have) different factual starting points. I thought the conflict was complicated, but now I understand just how understated it is to say that the conflict is complicated. But, people still talk to each other, and that, I think, counts for something and gives some hope. On Wednesday, we, the non-Israeli workshop attendees, visited the site of Rawabi in the West Bank. This is a fascinating project -- the Qatari government is a major investor, and much of the architecture feels like the Gulf -- of a new planned Palestinian city, halfway between Ramallah and Nablus, high on a mountain from which you can see Tel Aviv and the ships in the Mediterranean. Later that night we had an end of workshop dinner in East Jerusalem where Israelis and Palestinians shared a meal and talked about how the workshop had gone and the future of an Open City project in Jerusalem. I found the workshop concomitantly sad and hopeful, and I tasted the profound frustration that comes with attempts to resolve this conflict.

Thursday morning I had a couple of emails from friends and family asking about the situation: Hamas' military chief had been assassinated.  Be'er Sheva and cities in the south were facing rocket attacks.  Then Tel Aviv was hit yesterday.  Last night I was out with friends for pizza. The waiter came to take our order and he said, "How are you?" I said, "Good, glad to be here." He pointed to the TV screen and said, "Better than Tel Aviv." Um, yeah, last night we were definitely feeling that. And, I think many folks, like me, really figured we could remain untouched by the events in the South.  All that changed at 445 this afternoon.  We, too, are in the war zone. What does it mean?

I have no idea. I have two Israeli friends, one a combat soldier on reserve, the other an IDF pilot. Both have been in touch to see that I'm okay and to give advice about shelters and what to do. I feel lucky to live with an Israeli family and not to be alone. We live in an old Templar home with thick walls and we have an inside room that can be a shelter.  If the air raid siren goes again, we go to the shelter room. I have, out of an abundance of caution, packed a small emergency bag. (Me, who never kept an earthquake kit at home in Vancouver! I'm positive the odds of an earthquake in Vancouver are higher than the odds of our house in Jerusalem being hit by a rocket.) I'm walking the middle road -- I know some expats that chose to leave town tonight and I know Israelis who insist there is little to no risk. Since I have no experience of war, I'm going with cautiously optimistic and slightly prepared.

What does it mean to my stay in Israel? I don't know yet. I've an invitation to go stay at the kibbutz in the Beit Sh'ean if I start to feel unsafe or uncomfortable in Jerusalem. I am just feeling settled into life and work here. I'm learning so much. We'll see how the week goes and hope that diplomacy intervenes before a ground attack is launched and more lives are lost.