One thing I didn’t expect to feel during this current visit to Israel was calm. But I felt it the second I landed—sad, even depressed, but calm. For two weeks, I escaped from the vitriol in the American streets, the canceling of friends online, the arguments about Israel’s right to exist. No one is paying attention to any of the statements or protests, except for whatever President Biden and his advisors say. No other voices matters.
I was sitting with a friend of mine in a café in Jaffa when he told me that the difference between all of the lefty noise outside of Israel is that over “there,” Israel is a “cause,” but here, “it’s our life.” And almost on cue, as he said this, my phone alarm went crazy. It was the “Red Alert” app, telling us that there were incoming rockets from Hamas aimed at Tel Aviv. There were 11 rockets, in fact aimed at the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, Israel’s most densely populated region. Everyone fled the cafe, leaving coffee cups and a chess board. We ran out to a safe place—to the stairwell of my friend’s apartment building across the street while waiting to hear a very loud boom, which was the sound of the Iron Dome breaking apart the missiles. Then, as instructed, we waited another 10 minutes, ensuring we weren’t in the line of ricocheting pieces of missiles, until we returned to the cafe. I couldn’t help thinking that if there were no Iron Dome—and therefore massive Israeli civilian casualties—perhaps there would be more sympathy among the left, or at least, less enthusiasm for Hamas.
Last weekend, I drove north to spend time with my cousins, who live in a seaside community 9.5 kilometers from the Lebanese border, today fortified with sandbags, locked entrances, and military guard. They are just south of where Israel has ordered 28 communities to evacuate to hotels in the center of the country. The international news is giving less coverage to the truly dangerous situation for Israelis in the north, as Hezbollah continues to lob rockets into civilian communities.