The children of Gaza

The Jerusalem Post recently featured an article about a series in Lancet, a British medical journal, describing an increase in health problems among Gazan children. Experts cited a rise in malnutrition and higher infant mortality rates since the Israeli border closures and, said a Medicines Sans Frontiers spokesperson, a significant increase in premature births during Operation Cast Lead. 

Israeli spokesman Mark Regev called the report "propaganda in the guise of a medical report" and blamed the Gazan health situation on the Hamas regime. 

Of course, the core issue that needs to be addressed is the suffering of the children, and I hope and pray it can be solved. However, I agree with Regev that the root cause of the problem is Hamas.  "Instead of investing in public health," he said,  "they've invested in violence and conflict."

Understanding (not) the European mentality

Are you surprised by the Spanish judge who is opening a file against Israeli security personnel for killing a Hamas terrorist in 2002?

It's appalling. But let's face it. Europeans have a history of anti-Semitism, though there are exceptions. And these days, Europeans are fueled by their own postmodern ideology, unable to differentiate between moral and immoral behavior.

I experienced the shocking equivocation of good and evil in Spain many years ago. I had a German friend who looked up to the Palestinian cause. I didn't identify very much with Israel then, but as a Jew his animosity toward Israel hurt me. I couldn't understand it. And then something happened that gave me a window into this mentality.

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Fathers, sons and Gaza

Jerusalem Post reporter and columnist Herb Keinon recently wrote a moving article about his son's first tour of duty in a combat unit during wartime. He described the constant state of tension he lived under while his son was in danger. He worried each time the phone rang that it would announce that his son had been injured and dreaded even more an unexpected knock on the front door threatening something even worse.

I know that his description was accurate not because my soldier son was in danger, but because at least three times during the first day or two of the IDF's invasion of the Gaza strip a father with a son in Gaza described to me emotions similar to those described by Keinon. Once on a street in Jerusalem, once in a parking lot and once on the way to the synagogue a friend or acquaintance came over to me and out of the blue said something like the following:  "Ah. My son just went into Gaza. I'm really worried. Can't sleep at night. Can't get any work done that requires any concentration."

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Not my turn this time

A few nights ago as the Israel air force was raining bombs on Hamas in Gaza and Hamas rockets were destroying buildings and lives in Ashkelon and Ashdod ... I went out to dinner in Jerusalem.  

An hour's drive south west of where I sat, tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people could not stray, under consequence of death or dismemberment, more than 40 seconds from a fortified room ... and I was considering how much to tip my waitress because my food came late and cold.

I had a similar experience during the so-called Second War in Lebanon. As a citizen of the center of the country, I spent tense moments in front of my computer horrified at the rockets falling on Haifa, and then went out shopping for toothpaste in Jerusalem or drove to Tel Aviv for a day at the beach. 

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