Sandstorms, Dust, Seeing Through It |
Sandstorms in the desert blown our way from the Sahara. My eyes itch. It irritates my throat. The government issues warnings. The Ministry of Health warns the public, particularly at-risk populations, such as the elderly and asthmatics, to avoid spending time outdoors and refrain from outdoor activities requiring effort. Not unusual for the government to issue such warnings.
My eyes are tired of darkness peering out of my home office, with its steel-sealed window. Natural light, even on a hazy, sand stormy day is preferable. I open the window, because there’s enough time to close it when we turn my home office, otherwise known as our granddaughters’ playroom, into our saferoom. The government issues a warning. The mayor and the IDF Home Front Command send messages alerting us of pending air-raid sirens. A signal to be as near a shelter as possible. A few minutes pass. The air raid siren.
We halt what we are doing. I close the window. Haim closes the door. The saferoom doorhandle is raised to a 90° position from its usual resting place. We sit on the sofa-bed awaiting booms and the next message to be issued advising us it’s safe to leave the saferoom. But not before Haim says, “Who knows who will be left without a home for Shabbat?” That was Friday afternoon. On Wednesday, he asked the question, adjusted to who would be left without a home for the seder, to begin the Passover holiday. It’s become his mantra, concerned about who might be left without a home from the next incoming missile. Often, he adds regretfully that it’s impossible to place your confidence in the government accommodating and adequately compensating those who lose their homes. It can take years. The mechanisms that exist – Property Tax and Compensations – provide immediate short-term solutions, while interim and long-term options are likely to be far less than adequate, with economic recovery disrupting lives and emotional recovery, inseparably enmeshed one in the other. Frightening. But life is more precious and if that is saved, it means that one can still draw on other strengths for moving forward.
The government doesn’t send many other messages. Conventional media faithfully conveys its messages. Occasionally, anchorpersons and reporters, particularly in Haaretz will criticize or expose. Injustices in the West Bank and the current situation in Gaza pass under the radar when war on two fronts, from Iran, and Hezbollah from Lebanon, intrudes into every living room in Israel. Little room remains to make even a bottom screen headline on other matters.
If it weren’t for the fact that we know foreign media outlets cover Jewish terrorism in the West Bank, I would feel it should be my mission to blog about it, asking friends and family who care about Israel – the one that should be – to advocate and pressure influencers and their governments to demand Israel act to protect human rights, and certainly not to enable settlers, police, army, and security services attacking Palestinians in the West Bank, with government backing. A means of making Palestinians decide to flee. Israel perpetrating ethnic cleansing.
I have distinguished between settlers, who are not all extremists, and extremists operating together with Hillside Youth terrorizing Palestinians, in my writing. Wanting myself to be in denial, yet processing: the Israel Police, subordinate to the Ministry of National Security with Ben-Gvir as Minister, and the IDF as supported by increasing evidence are active partners to the disgraceful, abhorrent acts of terror against Palestinians. Can’t deny. Knowing foreign news outlets much more likely to cover than Israeli media. When a reserves regiment attacked a CNN reporter, Israelis couldn’t escape the penetration of that news, despite the prominence of missiles from Iran, rockets from Lebanon, and attacks from Yemen.
All things considered, it was a sad kind of refreshing, like salty water reminiscent of our tears in the desert, through uncertainty on the journey from slavery to freedom as told during the seder: Friday TV news before Shabbat, during Pesach, journalist Noga Nir Neeman, speaking of the West Bank said we should open the news one night with headlines on Jewish terrorism in the West Bank. That terrorism that the General Security Services are clearly not acting to end. The news team claimed Jewish terrorism in the West Bank is not explicit government policy. An admission that it’s implicit?
We must face it. Meanwhile, we need the Supreme Court to uphold our right to demonstrate against the war. A situation that implicates the government.
If desert sands are blinding, and salty water refreshing, and we take another moment to reflect from our safe room, let us hope that at the end of this Pesach, we remember that asking questions should be a constant, never put on hold for presumed resilience and unity for war. Should we fail to ask questions, we let sand leave a layer of dust when the rainy season has passed, and yet another layer of dust will settle.
Harriet Gimpel, April 4, 2026