Israel Matzav

There's no place like home

THERE WAS, though, one windowsill where you could leave your BlackBerry, where every now and then, a signal came through. So if you left the BB there overnight, chances were that in the morning, you could at least check your e-mail and not fall too far behind. A big mistake.

One morning I woke up and checked my e-mail. There wasn’t much, thankfully, but one from my brother caught my attention. “Is everyone OK?” was the subject line, with no text. But there didn’t need to be. An e-mail like that can mean only one thing. I got in the car, raced to town, bought a coffee I didn’t want so I could sit in the Wi-Fiequipped diner and read about what was unfolding on the southern border.

So much for calm that comes with falling asleep to the sound of crickets.

I spent most of the day by that windowsill, trying to coax my BlackBerry into getting the news. Details slowly emerged. Terrorists had infiltrated the Negev. Among others, two sisters, with their husbands on vacation, had been heading south when the border highway was blocked by gunmen who shot them each at point-blank range, an eyewitness said. The other stories were no less gruesome.

I spoke to someone reasonably high up in Intelligence, usually a bit too trusting of our “peace partners” for my taste, but very smart and always worth hearing out. Was this somehow connected to the upcoming September UN vote, I wondered? Not at all, he said. These attacks take months to plan. They launch them when they can.

“Then what’s the point?” I asked.

“What does this do for them?” He laughed. “What do you mean, ‘What’s the point’? They wanted to kill Jews.”

Tommy Lapid came to mind. Seventy years later, there’s really still no place to run. You can be on vacation near Eilat with your husband, your sister and your brother-in-law, not in the “territories,” not near any contested border. And they block the highway and shoot you pointblank anyway – because “they wanted to kill Jews.” A different century. A different continent. A different enemy. Plus ça change.

Labels: Palestinian terrorism, There's no place like home

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:24 PM