Still Here. Worries Arrive.

Friday,  August 1, 11:00 am

I am sitting at my messy desk.  In five hours I fly, via Frankfurt, to Tel Aviv.  And I am starting to get a bit nervous.  The news sounded better last night with a 72 hour cease fire declared.  It lasted four hours and ended in part with the dreaded kidnapping of an Israeli soldier.  I still want and intend to go, but would not be surprised if those with higher level decision power, the trip organizers and the airline managers, altered my plans.  Or maybe this is just my nerves speaking.

On the other hand, Amir, a dear friend and cycling buddy, is coming, with his family, to Ben Gurion to pick me up.  And later in the day I have dinner plans with a young congregant.  Half of me expects to find a veneer of normality over the obvious crisis and half of me expects to see the crisis, plain.

Like World War I, only on a smaller scale, the common understanding among Israelis was that the war would be short with normality quickly restored.  Having uncovered the web of tunnels and the vast array of missiles, Israel is in no position to stop.  Yet, death is the final truth of life and as the causalities mount the call to stop needs to be heeded.  A no win situation has become a nobody wins tragedy.

And I guess that is, in part, why I am going.  I want to experience the cruel sadness, not the bravado that distance lends.  How do we balance the needs of Zionist survival against the deaths of Zionists and the deaths of those whom Zionists kill.  I am a Zionist and I don't know.