Sderot Community Treatment Theater changes lives
Sderot, Israel: If you heard Color Red siren alerts in Sderot on Wednesday night, October 14, it wasn't because rockets were being fired from Gaza, something Sderot's 19,000 residents have had to endure for the past eight years. Instead, the sirens were part of a play produced by the Sderot Media Center (SMC) Community Treatment Theater program, called Children of Qassam Avenue. The play, which incorporates both the serious and comical aspects of Sderot life and features a hilariously entertaining Moroccan grandmother, had the audience both laughing and crying. "The play was a phenomenal success," stated Sderot child psychologist and recently-resigned director of the Sderot Resilience Center Dalia Yosef. "The positive impact of the theater therapy process clearly showed in the way these girls performed tonight - full of confidence and assurance," said Yosef. The young actresses performed before a home audience of 200 people, including visitors from Jerusalem, Ra'anana and Efrat. Sderot mayor David Bouskila opened the evening, praising the girls and the people of Sderot for their continuing strength and resiliency in the face of uncertain times. Yosef also noted that the timing of the Sderot Community Treatment Theater was also significant. "It is during these times of quiet when treatment therapy is most effective. The cease-fire gives trauma victims the opportunity to acquire coping skills in a less stressful environment, necessary for dealing with future rocket attacks," said Yosef. Rockets for Rosh Hashana
It's true there were no physical casualties from last night's rocket fire - but that doesn't explain what happened here in Sderot last night. My family lives in Silver Spring, Maryland - thousands of miles away from where I live and work. I spent the family-oriented holiday Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, with amazing families in Sderot, Israel where I work and live. After a long day of eating, drinking, and celebrating I arrived home to take a relaxing shower and go to bed. As I got out of the shower the night silence was lit up, my heart began to race and my legs quivered. The echoing Tzeva Adom (Color Red) reverberated in my first-floor apartment in Sderot as I huddled in its most sheltered area - the corner of the kitchen next to the refrigerator. Then, suddenly, the deafening silence following the alarm was broken by a not-so-distant explosion. I work for the Sderot Media Center , and two Kassam rockets had just clocked me in at just before 1 a.m. - I was out the door, running down the street to get my camera. Why has the world bought into this misconception that the rockets have stopped as more than 250 have struck Israel in the past eight months? 'There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza'
On September 10 alone, over 89 trucks of international aid and gasoline poured into the Gaza Strip. Since September 1, over 700 truckloads of international aid, including over 1,760,000 liters of gasoline, have been sent into Gaza. Since the end of Operation Cast Lead on January 18, over 2,000 truckloads - over 37,000 tons - of humanitarian aid has been delivered to the Gaza Strip. As international uproar over the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip continues, Guy Inbar, spokesman for the Israel Civil Administration, which manages the Palestinian Authority's requests for aid, goods and gasoline, says that these are in fact decreased amounts. "Over the past two to three months we have seen a definitive decrease in the requests from the Palestinian Authority, because they have goods, foods, and medicines that still have not been used," said Inbar, adding that, "As we have said before, there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza." While I sat for hours, watching truck after truck drive in and out of the Gaza Strip, Dr. Adriana Katz, director of three of Sderot's mental health and trauma treatment centers, told me over the phone that there has been no change in the lack of funding for the Sderot centers. Sderot students ready for school bells - and rocket sirens
Although the third Hamas-Israel cease-fire is still in effect, Sderot schoolchildren began the 2009 school year both excited and apprehensive. Two days before the doors to Sderot's nine schools opened, on Sunday, August 30, two rockets fired from Gaza triggered the city's rocket warning system, known as the Color Red siren, and sent residents racing for a shelter. "I was scared but not surprised," says Rotem, a 16-year-old Sderot student beginning eleventh grade at a local Sderot high school. "We know that the rocket attacks will begin again and I don't think that anyone here really believes that the quiet will last. We've lived here [in Sderot] long enough to know that," she said. Dina Huri, principal of a Sderot elementary school, made sure the new school year would offer everything to her first to sixth grade students, including upgraded school shelters against future rocket attacks. "During the summer, I had the three school bomb shelters made 'kid-friendly,'" she said. Huri had the shelter painted in bright colors, and installed rugs so the children would feel more comfortable. She doesn't remember the exact date the shelters were first installed - "they've been around for a while" - but said the original concrete grey slabs made children feel imprisoned. "Last year, every time the siren blared, the students had to run into these concrete structures, wondering when they could leave. Now these shelters are places that the students want to play in," she said. In any case, Sderot residents had another reason to expect rocket fire on the opening day of this school year. Mitchell's peace message isn't reaching the Islamic media
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad this week, US envoy George Mitchell stated that the US administration under Barack Obama is determined to carry out a "truly comprehensive" Arab-Israeli peace deal. "That peace means between Palestinians and Israelis, between Syria and Israel, and between Lebanon and Israel," Mitchell stated. Mitchell also called on the full normalization of relations between Israel and all the countries in the region. The term "comprehensive peace" came up often in Mitchell's outlining of US expectations for the Middle East region to reporters. But behind the positive attitude and optimistic language that has characterized the Obama administration's quest for peace in the region - something other US presidents have tried and failed to achieve - there is something missing. Humanizing Hamas: An NYTimes objective gone wrong
The New York Times recently published an interview with Hamas's political chief, Khaled Mashal, entitled Addressing US, Hamas Says It Grounded Rockets. In the interview, the Times takes a very sympathetic approach to Hamas leader, who was just elected to his fourth term as Hamas's political bureau chief, the post he has held since 2004. The Times attempts to portray a new more "moderate" Mashal, in the hopes that Hamas is actually turning a new leaf. In the article, The Times quotes Mashal as asking Americans to disregard the Hamas charter, (steeped in anti-Semitic declarations), while also stating that Iran does "not control or affect Hamas policies." The Times also quotes Mashal saying that Hamas has no interest in bringing strict Muslim law into Gaza. Holocaust Remembrance Day: The tragedy of silence
Yesterday, Israel marked Holocaust Remembrance Day. Standing on a street in Sderot, I listened quietly to the siren sound, remembering the tragedy of 6 million Jews killed in Nazi Europe, my great grandparents, uncles and aunts from Poland among them. I've become used to sirens sounding in Sderot during my past two years here-the click of the intercom, followed by a female voice that calmly repeats Tzeva Adom, Tzeva Adom, or Color Red. The scenes that unfold usually entail people dashing into shelters-racing for 15 seconds that may mean the difference between life and death. UNRWA, where is the money going?
In recent years, billions of dollars have poured into Gaza from hundreds of countries and international organizations. How much of that money has actually reached Palestinian civilians, effectively improving their quality of life and economy, has yet to be completely determined, thanks to vague audits and on-line information. Only recently, with a relatively silent international press, have there been questions from top political leaders, primarily from the US, about the way in which the donor money will be transferred into Gaza. At an Egyptian donors' conference organized by Norway and Egypt in early March, more than 75 international donors and organizations met to announce their financial support of the reconstruction in Gaza. Over $5.2 billion were pledged at the conference, surprising the Palestinian Authority, which had originally called for $2.8 billion. In light of the US pledge of $900 million, the second largest following Saudi Arabia's $1b. pledge at the conference, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that no US funds earmarked for Gaza would end up in the "wrong hands." Waiting for Peace to Make an Appearance
As I travel down to Sderot to begin another week working at our Sderot Media Center office, I'm reminded of Shakespeare's famous line: "All the world's a stage." Sderot, a small Israeli city located less than a mile away from Gaza, is in its own right a stage for weekly rocket attacks, post trauma victims and visiting politicians. Iran, Hamas and Obama
As US President Barack Obama makes historic overtures in attempting to foster open dialogue with Iran, the rest of world watches in optimistic anticipation. The UK's Guardian recently reported that Obama's administration drafted a letter to Iran "aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations and opening the way for face-to-face talks." Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has welcomed US overtures saying that:
Change or no change, residents of southern and northern Israel have reason to be wary of Iran, a country that continues to fund Hamas and Hizbullah terrorism operations. |
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