The falafel and the bulldozer

Coming to Jerusalem to work for a few days seemed like a welcome break from the Kassam rockets that Arab terrorists fire at Sderot. In Jerusalem, the method Arab terrorists prefer to kill random civilians is suicide-bombing. The Israeli army has largely controlled that kind of murder by building a barrier to prevent Arab terrorists from infiltrating Israel. Whenever I come to Jerusalem, I feel liberated, because I do not automatically look around me for a wall to crouch behind as I walk down the street. People living in Sderot develop skills to use when the alarm announces that a rocket is flying in their general direction and will detonate in about fifteen seconds. We automatically, almost unconsciously, look for potential shelter wherever we go. In Jerusalem I need not do this.

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Craters, glass and shrapnel

Throughout Saturday afternoon, I heard a number of alarms followed by a number of loud explosions as several rockets hit Sderot. I did not know where they had hit and I decided to go looking for them when the sun went down and the Sabbath ended.

A constant problem here is that we hear the loud KABOOM! when the rocket lands, but we often have no way of knowing exactly where the explosion occurred - unless, of course, the rocket went through the roof of someone's house. We too are dependent on the news media to learn exactly what has happened, but the TV and radio do not mention the address where the rocket fell, because most of their audience does not live in Sderot.

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Skewed perceptions

Last Sunday, several South African diplomats and a political science professor from an American university came to visit Sderot. It was a typical tour through Sderot with rather atypical reactions from the visitors.

Usually, foreign visitors express shock and sympathy towards the victims of rocket terror. I was then, more than surprised when the visitors asked a Sderot grandmother whose home was recently wrecked by a Kassam rocket, the following questions.

"Do you feel for the Palestinian grandmother who is in the same condition as you?"

"What would you say to the women in Gaza who are also suffering?"

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An eerie week

Shalom from Sderot!

It was a very eerie week - it was so quiet and the helicopters and fighter planes reminded us of the hornet's nest less than a kilometer (1/2 a mile) away in Gaza. We were able to function normally for almost a whole week (last Friday until last night, Wednesday). Of course, we still knew that, though we had a small breather, it wouldn't be forever. 

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