2: February, 1991
<< 1: January, 1991 || TOC
Tuesday 5th February 1991
In fact I didn't go to bed at 2:10 on Saturday night; I caught sight of Time magazine
on the table where Gadi had thrown it, and read for another half an hour. Along with the
insomniacs. "Time" was full of the war, of course, but the only point that
really struck me was that General Schwarzkopt had predicted a war against Iraq 8 years
ago, and drawn up contingency plans which were now, essentially, the battle plans being
followed. Interesting. It takes a lot of time, effort and money to draw up battle plans
for a war, and we may assume that the White House is at least aware of what plans exist
for what contingency where. I'd imagine this is part of the basic information given a new
President by the Pentagon when he assumes office. These plans have existed for 8 years. In
other words, it has been clear to the U.S. for AT LEAST that long (for who knows what
they're not telling us?) that they would probably need to fight a war against Iraq before
they could settle the Middle East conflict. One more nail in the coffin for the idea that
the prime reason was Kuwait. Of course, "Time" praised Schwarzkopt for his
uncanny far-sightedness; but views on where the next war will be fought do not remain, in
the army, the prerogative of one man (or at least they don't get very far if they do).
They don't even remain just in the army, as already said.
Despite only 4 hours' sleep, I woke at the usual time on Sunday and got to work on
time. My cake proved to be only one of half a dozen baked by the yiddische momas of the
library for the Patriot crew over the weekend. Edi got a personal phone call from the
local Patriot base commander after the last delivery -- he sounded really touched, she
said. Somebody should have warned him that in Israel the army is bombarded by 2 cakes for
every missile.
Edi offered a warm hearth and hot shower to anyone who was off-duty and tired of bare
hillsides, but they're not allowed to leave the base. Poor souls. Still, better a Haifa
hillside than the Saudi Arabian desert right now. Shopping is a problem these days. Food
stores stay open till 6 or 7 pm but most others close at 5. Undone shopping is beginning
to accumulate. If I leave work promptly at 4 pm, which in itself is unusual, I can manage
half an hour in the stores. Yair wants a new pair of sneakers just for basketball, Liron
wants a brother-proof treasure-box, both need pajamas. The trick is to do it in stages, I
discover. One day survey the stores in one shopping centre, the next in another. Identify
the items to buy. Then you can just manage, in a mad dash, to get home, pick up the kids,
go straight to the right store, to the shelf, to the item, persuade the child that this is
exactly what he/she's been looking for, and pay. I manage 3 stores in half an hour with
the kids and even get them to dentist in time at 5:15. Supermother at last!
Liron reminds me that it's a month since I took her to the local "conditoria"
for cake and soda and an hour's uninterrupted conversation. This has been my habit for
several months now, because mothers and daughters can't talk in a house full of noisy
males. (She doesn't realise we need to talk but will do almost anything for a slice of
Kripps' famed apple strudel and ice cream). She's right, but somehow the atmosphere isn't.
You need to be relaxed. Not this rushing to and fro to fit everything in before 5 pm, this
emptying of the streets after dusk. Not when at 5:30 you suddenly realise that you're the
last customers and the waitresses are glancing at their watches, because they, too, don't
like being out once it's dark. Nonetheless, I promise her that one day I'll get home
early, perhaps even at 4:15, and if she's ready and waiting, we might manage an hour
before the self-imposed curfew.
I haven't heard too much about the war of late. I missed the Sunday news because
Saturday night caught up with me, and I fell asleep on the sofa before the news came on. I
missed the Monday news because my hard disk crashed over the weekend and was
unceremoniously buried in the Computerland graveyard. I got a brand-new sparkling disk
with no bad sectors whatsoever (miracle!) and spent Monday evening, surrounded by 100
diskettes, reducing it to the comfortable level of confusion of its predecessor. The real
victim was Liron, who'd spent hours and hours of her enforced idleness over the past 2
weeks creating a set of intricate palettes in non-standard colours for her paint program
("Look, Mummy, you make this dark pink by mixing black pixels in with the pink ones
of the regular pink, every other line"). She had 21 patterns. Warriors with shields
in one pattern, smileys in another, all repeated endlessly across the screen. All gone.
Her warriors are in the limbo of track 54 on a disk with no track 0, and Liron is
inconsolable. Moral: teach the kids Safe Computing, even in a war. In future I must wrap a
batch file round the paint program like the one I have round the word processor, that'll
compel her to copy her creations to a diskette. Unlike me, she won't even know how to
trick it.
There haven't been any missiles for 2 days either. If there is a pattern, we're due for
one tonight, when I shall be on the way to the Negev once again; but we've already agreed
that there's no pattern. At work, however, the war has been as evident as ever. The rooms
we sealed, after much protest, a week ago have been unsealed by people clamouring for a
breath of fresh air.
On Monday (yesterday) my high-strung colleagues in the library's Department of War
Hysteria (there are now 3 of them in that department, for fear is contagious) insisted on
re-doing their set of rooms. They received another supply of plastic and masking tape and
spent half the day sealing themselves in. Nonetheless they still aren't satisfied and
complain that someone professional should be doing the sealing. Someone with experience
(in what? Chemical wars?). The library director, having suffered accusations of consigning
Jews to the gas-cells just like Hitler when she tried to reason with them last time,
shrugs her shoulders and lets them get on with it. Fear is irrational, you cannot reason
with it. These colleagues, few though they be compared to the total number of library
staff, remind me that not everyone is taking this in their stride. The chance of a missile
hitting any one particular building, out of all the buildings in the city, is slight; but
for these poor souls it looms larger than the whole horizen.
Others are complaining at the slow return to normalcy. Why don't they send the children
back to school in Haifa and Tel-Aviv, as they're doing in other areas? Liron had a
one-hour school meeting today and received, like Yair, a large amount of material for home
study, but it's not the same as regular school.
There is a ray of light. Frieda, the head of what I've called our Department of War
Hysteria, arrived today at 10 am. Frieda has a head of blond curls and four children under
the age of 10, and since the war began she's been at home, holding her head and her
children alternately, watching the news and sitting in her Sealed Room and going gently
crazy. Frieda is a placid person, she does everything gently. Her room at home is
well-sealed, much better than the library's, for Frieda is also extremely well-organized.
A mother of four who works full-time has to be. She remembers how she used to crave a day
off to stay at home, just to bake, shop, do housework. Now she has had 10 of them in a
row. Nonetheless, she says, she had done nothing useful at home; between reassuring the
children, watching the news, separating the children, sitting in sealed rooms, and finding
employment for the children, the time slips away. However, she is now an expert at getting
2 gas masks and 2 other contraptions that look like the top halves of space suits onto 4
children in 3 minutes flat. Frieda is organized.
Indeed we see she is, for she arrives with all 4 children in tow, having nobody with
whom to leave them ("I just couldn't stand another day at home," she explains)
and yet within an hour of her arrival the department has settled down to solid, productive
work. It's easy, she says. I just called them all together, asked them exactly how they
want the place sealed, and then I did it. Now they're not worried any more and they're
working. In the privacy of my room we discuss the acoustic ceiling. Yes, Frieda agrees, it
probably isn't safe; but the point is that her people think it is. No point in telling
them other people's opinions. For the first time since the war began, they're happy.
Her children are happy too. Piled into the mail room with pens, paper and a month's
supply of packaging materials, they are quieter than Stealth bombers. They were here for 4
hours before I noticed. My own children resemble Stealth bombers in just about every way
except this invisibility, even though there are only 2 of them, and I am full of
admiration. My own expertise is with computers. I wish I could handle people the way
Frieda does. I'm sorry she isn't coming again till Thursday, children and all.
Vignettes from the war:
1) Liron decides to write to her friend in the States. Fine, I say, but she'll be
surprised, because it's only a few days since Liron last wrote. And Liron replies: that's
OK, she'll understand. I'll explain to her that it's terribly boring, being in a war.
2) Her friend Tami has made her poodle a "gas mask" of damp cloth sprinkled
with bicarbonate of soda. I don't remember if she managed to get the contraption on the
dog's head, but it's the thought that counts. Someone else showed up on TV with a rather
more professional gas mask for his Guiding Eye dog. At the other end of the scale, a
friend of mine travelled from Jerusalem to Beersheva by bus and met a man who has 6
children. All 8 family gas-masks have remained sealed in their original boxes. He hasn't
even checked them (and why should he, if he isn't going to use them?)
There's been a good deal of talk on the news about our ability to hit the H2 and H3
missile launchers. Are our politicians preparing the ground for the time when the U.S.
will allow a strike? Or are they diverting attention, camoflauging preparations for some
other operation? Or even just stroking the ruffled feathers of the hawks? Hard to decide.
This is a propaganda war and there are probably some other possibilities ... but anyone
still reading knows the refrain by now.
The police have cancelled all vacations and worked 12-hour shifts since the war
started. "When everyone goes into their sealed rooms, we go out on the streets,"
a police chief says. Don't ask me what they're doing there, but I know what they're not. I
double-parked for half an hour in down-town Haifa, hazard lights flashing, to deliver my
wounded computer to the Computerland surgeons, and completed the mission without so much
as a ticket. Unheard of. It's two weeks since anyone was towed away from outside their
door, the Computerland clerk tells me. Having missiles fired at you has its small
compensations.
Thursday 7th February
10 pm. The news mentioned something about American willingness to invest in Iraq after
the war. I remember -- the U.S. suggested setting up a fund for the purpose. It was of
course pretty obvious that Iraq'll need the equivalent of a Marshall plan. Setting up a
fund means the U.S. is already declaring that she doesn't intend to foot the bill alone. I
assume that German guilt will be enlisted once more: "you supplied the chemical and
biological weapons and factories which we had to bomb, you should pay a large part of the
costs of putting the new Iraq back on her feet". Japan too: those who didn't join in
(or pay much, so far, for) the war should contribute to the peace. The U.S. will still, I
imagine, contribute a large amount. The West will remake Iraq in its image.
What's nice is that this has all so clearly been mapped out in advance. We're following
the U.S. through a pre-planned maze, and every so often she obligingly drops clues as to
the path. The reconstruction of Iraq must have been planned at the same time as its
destruction; both the fire and the phoenix together. As also, of course, the dismissal of
the PLO as a political partner, and the shape of the eventual Middle East settlement. (Not
many clues have been dropped about that so far, except that there will be one.) I expect
it's a 5 to 10 year plan. Everything in politics takes 5 to 10 times as long as any
rational human being would think necessary. Political courses resemble that of the cruise
missile seen by a journalist from his Baghdad hotel window, which made two 90-degree turns
in order to avoid another hotel in its pre-programmed flight path. There are many, many
hotels in the flight path of a pre-programmed political plan. An observer has to learn to
distinguish between the course and the 90-degree diversions. Sometimes it can only be done
in retrospect. For instance, I'm still not sure which the Jordanian position is. Was King
Hussein manoevred into his present incredible corner, or did he simply play into American
hands? He's such an old hand at the game that the latter seems unlikely, but we aren't
likely to know much about the former, unless we have access to diplomatic bags. Of course
the question as posed presupposes a belief that the U.S. preferred Jordan to side with
Iraq (resulting in its being discredited, the Jordanian regime being severely compromised
and probably eventually falling). That's the way I read it. If you believe that Jordan had
a completely free hand to decide which side to favour, within her own internal maze,
you'll ask a different question. I just don't believe international politics works that
way, and I don't think King Hussein would have made the choice he did, even if it did. For
forty years he's survived Jordanian internal politics by sitting on fences, not by falling
off them to one side or the other.
To get back to the point -- I doubt it'll take us more than a year or two after the war
ends to start talking seriously to the Palestinians, despite the time that political
processes require. I also doubt it'll take us less than 6 months. (A RATIONAL time would
be 2-3 months.) I have not yet seen anything to shake my belief, expressed on Humanist a
week before the war started, that there's a 50-50 chance (at least) that eventually the
Palestinian state will include part of Jordan (along with most of the West Bank) and King
Hussein, or his son, will be king of a much smaller Beduin state.
Perhaps it's just as well that nobody's asking my opinion.
Saturday 9th February
Our run of missile-free nights ended last night with a siren soon after 2:30 am. For
the first time, it woke us up. We tried sleepily to figure out if we had enough time left
to wake and mask the kids, decided we didn't. I defy anyone to wake Yair in 4 minutes or
less at 2:30 am. So we opted out of the play this time around, let the children sleep, and
thankfully stayed in bed ourselves. It only took 10 minutes before the intrepid Nahman
Shai, or at least his disembodied voice, (doesn't the poor man ever sleep? Doesn't the
army have a stand-in for him?) was releasing all areas except the central sector. (Come to
think of it, he was probably talking from his house in pajamas, unless he sleeps days and
is on standby nights. Perhaps the army had him tape all possible messages -- after all
there aren't very many combinations of sector names plus "may take off their gas
masks", "may come out of their sealed rooms" etc. -- and play them to the
radio as needed, and Nahman is really in bed just like us? Perish the thought! To some of
us he is as comforting as Santa Claus; what would we do if he should prove to be an
ordinary mortal and not Superman?)
We left the radio on another 10 minutes. It was clear a missile had fallen but also
clear we wouldn't get a report of damage and casualties for an hour or so, so we turned it
off and went back to sleep.
This morning the media have all the news, though as usual they don't agree among
themselves and the figures change during the day. The missile hit a residential street in
a well-to-do neighbourhood with many single-family houses. From the clues that creep into
the broadcasts we can figure out where. Pictures of burnt-out cars, houses with their
windows blown out, and red-tiled roofs blown off. Single- family houses aren't built as
sturdily as apartment blocks; tile roofs are intended to stand up to nothing but rain. But
then, too, the average American wooden house would probably be matchsticks in similar
circumstances; here, at least the walls are standing.
27 injured, says the radio at 8 am; 16, says the TV at 10. Finally they agree on (I
think) 19. Perhaps the confusion stems from deciding what's an injury. 11 people are shock
victims: do they count as "injured"? The main thing is that no-one was killed
and none of the injuries are very serious (according to that universally understood
Israeli scale which rates an injury as "light" if it will leave no permanent
disability or scars and "serious" if there's a 50% or less chance of surviving
it; everything else is "medium"). But the damage is extensive. 150 houses
damaged, says the radio in the morning; 500, says the TV evening news. Many will have to
be razed and rebuilt. Several Patriots were fired but seem to have missed; perhaps because
they're stationed relatively far from the area targeted? Later we hear they did hit, and
the damage is from falling fragments.
Gadi figures that the weather was responsible. The previous few nights were clear; it
would've been difficult to launch a missile without alerting the watchful eyes of the
Americans. Last night was cloudy. We can deduce in retrospect, but don't manage to
predict. Except for one man, who says his wife had such a strong premonition that they
went to friends a few blocks away for the night. Their house was badly damaged. The family
is religious, they interpret premonitions accordingly. Religion is very comforting at a
time like this. But I can only wonder why the 499 other families weren't granted
premonitions. I also wonder how many people in Israel have had premonitions which didn't
make the news because they didn't come true.
Shamir appears on the news and does his best to calm the nation. The total amount of
explosives fired at Israel so far, he reminds us, is 8 tons -- only slightly more than the
payload of a Phantom fighter. (A missile can carry approximately a quarter ton). It pays
him to be soothing, he's explaining that we have no intention of retaliating, and he needs
to dampen the desires for revenge. When the government wants to keep us on edge it plays a
different tune on the same strings.
The single missile fired at us so swamps the news coverage for most of the day that I
don't hear much about the ongoing U.S. assault on Iraq, where the real action is. But then
again, even when I do, there's not much news released. U.S. censorship is a lot tighter
than Israeli at the moment.
Despite this attack, the government sticks to its schedule of returning children to
school. Events that were sufficient reason to stop the schools three weeks ago are not now
sufficient reason for not restarting them. The population is tired of children at home;
the public mood is more important than objective reality. I agree that objective reality
also allows schools to be reopened, but that conclusion could have been reached 2 weeks
ago, only the public mood was not then ripe. Anyway, Liron starts school again tomorrow,
and Yair reverts to a schedule starting from 8 am (though early lessons, starting from 7,
are still not allowed). By Tuesday they hope to have all the kids back at school, at long
last.
At the end of the month comes the festival of Purim. Nobody has been thinking of gay
festivals, but I feel we must preserve an atmosphere of normality. so I ask Liron what she
wants to dress up as. I suggest a Scud missile (there's a limit to how normal one can be),
but she isn't impressed. For the last 4 years she's been some sort of animal; this year,
she says, she wants to be human. Not even an angel ("Mummy, last year 15 BOYS went as
angels!"); and ghosts, witches, demons and monsters are also out. I reflect that
she's behind the times, which are full of witches, demons and monsters. But she's not of
an age to understand; she doesn't even watch the news yet. However, just what does qualify
as "human" she hasn't decided. We don't have to decide whether Saddam is human,
for the stores have publicly announced that they won't sell costumes of him. Clowns are
passe and Queen Esthers (once the point of this whole celebration) are for first-graders.
Liron still doesn't know what she'll be. Pity; I think she'd've made a good missile. More
to the point, with enough cardboard and aluminum foil her thumbs-only mother could've made
a good missile too.
On the other hand, there'll probably be a surfeit of missiles in the classrooms this
Purim.
Wednesday 13th February
Yair has been overloaded with homework since school restarted, and has got into the
habit of studying with one friend or another. Today the friend is Ori, whose family spent
the first part of the war "on holiday" in Cyprus. But by the time I get home at
5:15 they've decided to take a break and have gone out, presumably to the ball court. At
6:15 the phone rings. Ori's mother. Upon hearing that the boys are out she becomes frantic
with worry. Immediately, as if someone had flipped a switch from "low-tension"
to "high". "You mean they're out on the streets? AFTER DARK???!!! It takes
a while to convince her that this is a residential neighbourhood and the ball court is
surrounded by houses, including a high-rise apartment building with an excellent communal
sealed shelter. (I don't actually know if that shelter is sealed, all I know is that it
makes a wonderful place for birthday parties; but a helpful assumption never hurt anyone,
did it?) From the way she reacted, you'd think we lived in a solitary tent in the middle
of the Carmel National Park. "Ori's father'll have a heart attack if he hears of
this!" she cries. And she makes me promise to go out, now, to the ball court, round
up the delinquents and shepherd them home. And call her back. I sigh and out I go. The
kids aren't at the ball court. That probably means they've gone on to another friend and
will phone me at 9 pm to ask for a lift home. I wonder what to tell Ori's mother; decide
to wait for her to phone me back. Luckily the boys arrive home 10 minutes after I do:
they'd gone to a different ball court, slightly farther away. Ori pales when he hears his
mother has phoned. "My dad'll have a HEART ATTACK if he hears of this!" he says.
And his first words when he phones (which I have to force him to do) are: "Mum, don't
tell Dad!"
I am beginning to understand who it was who dreamt up the trip to Cyprus. Luckily Ori's
father is in the army right now (reserve duty) and unlikely to discover how near his son
came to disaster through association with mine.
I hope Ori comes over some more. It's probably good for him to spend a few hours now
and then with people who don't jump every time a car backfires. When he returned from
Cyprus he was much tenser than he was when he returned from 2 hours in the ball court with
Yair (until he heard his mother had called, that is). In fact the first few days after his
return Yair spent a lot of time on the phone reassuring Ori that life in Haifa is livable.
Children are mostly affected by how their parents react, not by the situation itself (with
the possible exception of the babies and toddlers, for whom being in those plastic
gas-proof "incubators" must be stressful enough, however their parents react).
I'm reminded of Joey, a huge boxer whose ferocious appearance hides a gentle soul
(really he should have been born a St. Bernard). Joey belongs to a friend down the road.
Every time the siren sounds, she says, Joey races for their Sealed Room and sits there
shaking, his heart going pit-a-pat. She puts her arms around him (when they sit on the
floor they're about the same height) and tries to soothe him, but it's difficult to
explain to a dog. But this tells me more about her family's initial reactions to the
alerts than perhaps she wanted me to know. Joey's reaction, after all, sounds like a
classic Pavlovian response. Surely his fear was triggered by fear among his humans, and
since this was always associated with the siren, the sound soon became the trigger for
Joey's fear, even though the panic of the humans has distinctly lessened. Poor Joey! He
doesn't even know what he's scared of.
Thursday 14th February.
There have been no missiles for 2 days and we have slept gratefully. The nearest thing
to an alert has been the car engines, or, especially, motorcycles, especially when they
accelerate uphill in low gear. You hear the note rise gradually from low to high and you
tense; then a one-second pause; it's not followed by a corresponding descent, high to low,
and you relax. It was only a car, after all. Then, and only then, you notice you had
tensed. I'm somewhat ashamed to find myself reacting in this way, perhaps because of its
dissonance with the self-image I would like to preserve. But I think even the first notes
of Gerschwin's Rhapsody in Blue would bring most of Israel to its collective feet at the
moment.
I recently heard (perhaps from the other Israeli diarists? -- I forget) that our
consumption of chocolate has risen by 45 to 50% since the war started. Here I'm a big
offender; is this also evidence for being tense? How depressing. On the other hand, how
comforting to know that I can Blame It On The War.
I'm trying not to comment on the attack on the Iraqi bunker. On the human level,
anything an outside commentator can say is trite and inadequate. On the political, there's
enough rhetoric bouncing around already. What I don't understand is why people should be
surprised. Saddam has a well-established policy of placing military facilities in
population centres (so, incidentally, does the PLO in Lebanon) and of placing civilians,
his own or the enemy's, in military installations. It must have been clear to the Allies
from the start that a military bunker of strategic importance would have a high chance of
also housing civilians. So someone must have taken the decision from the start, that this
is not a sufficient reason for not hitting military targets. What's the alternative? Once
a "human shield" can be shown to work, Saddam has only to place civilians in all
military installations and he's stopped the Allied attack. There is no way to fight a
completely moral war.
I'm reminded of Churchill's decision in WWII, not to evacuate the city of Coventry even
though intercepted German messages showed that it was to be bombed. Britain decided to
accept massive civilian casualties rather than take steps which would have signaled the
Germans that their military codes had been broken. Soldiers' lives are always
"worth" more than civilian lives in war, even if the civilians are your own,
because it's the soldiers who determine the outcome of the battle. You can wrangle about
whether 400 actual civilian deaths are a justifiable price to pay for the potential saving
of 20 times as many soldiers' lives, and about whether it matters if the soldiers and
civilians are on the same or opposite sides. What it boils down to is that you cannot
fight a humane or moral war, and all the wrangling is either propaganda or an attempt to
square your self-image as humane and moral with that sad fact.
I cannot look at the tear-worn face of the man who says "I lost my wife and 2
children. Is that fair?" No, it isn't fair. War is not fair. Life is not fair either,
and death almost never. The question is beside the point, but still I cannot bear to look
at his face. I think it very probable that the U.S. will try to demolish the other
military bunkers in Baghdad, whether or not there are civilians inside. The alternative is
to leave the command and communications centers functioning in the approaching ground
battle. I only hope the Iraqi population will now have the sense to stay out of what may
have been presented to them as "public air-raid shelters". (I wouldn't be
surprised if they didn't even know there are military command posts below them.)
Well, that was the result of trying not to comment.
Before I leave work, a colleague shares with me the latest news. A friend of a
friend...of a friend who listens to the Arabic radio channels reports that the Arab
station(s) have been urging all the Arabs to leave Haifa this weekend. The grapevine is
very efficient. I make a mental note of whom not to tell. Ori's parents head the list.
Undoubtedly the rumour arouses some slight feeling of apprehension. If it's true, we're in
for an interesting weekend. I wonder which channel(s) broadcast it. There are 3
possibilities: Iraq (if they're still broadcasting), Jordan, or the PLO in Lebanon. I
wonder if it's a real threat or a contribution to the war of nerves.
I decide not to tell my own children either; in the end I tell only Gadi. "Just
like the War of Independence," is his immediate comment. He's right: then too, the
Arab countries warned the Arabs of Haifa to get out and let them mop up the Jews
unhampered. It'd only take a few days, they said. Those who left have been stranded in
Gaza and the West Bank ever since, "personae non gratae" to all the countries
who told them to leave as well as to Israel. I wonder how many of them will believe their
radio this time.
8 pm. By the time I wander into the living-room, the earliest of the evening news
broadcasts is already in the middle of a subtitled English- language report on the bunker
bombing. It takes about 2 minutes to realise that this isn't a CNN report. It's too
comprehensive, too even-handed.
Right, says Gadi, it's NBC.
When you can tell whether a report emanates from CNN or not, just by the tone, in 2
minutes flat, you know CNN isn't broadcasting news. Not objective news, anyway. In fact
the 2 Israeli TV channels sometimes cut a few pictures from CNN reports into their own
news, but almost never relay a complete CNN report, and I can't blame them. We get NBC
reports; we get ABC's Nightline, both duly subtitled. Those who want CNN have to watch it
on Lebanon (and I assume the central area, which is too far away to receive Lebanon, gets
it on Jordan. I can't get Jordanian TV, I'm too far away from them, so I can't check the
point.) Having watched it on Lebanon, I have to admit I agree with the policy of the
Israeli stations. CNN has placed itself too firmly in the Iraqi camp to be acceptable as
"news".
What does it help to be the biggest voice in Baghdad, if you pay for it with your
independence and your integrity?
Friday 15th February.
A dull, grey day. Low clouds and a cold, dry north-east wind: a winter hamsin. The
trees rock in the gusts, tall ships riding out the wind-waves; the geraniums in the
window-box shiver. The radio can find no more cheerful fare than the widening gap between
the cost of living index and the level of wages. After this it brings us the current
argument between the honourable and cultured Ministers Pat and Moda'i, each of which,
according to the other, himself needs the Ministrations of a white-coated attendant in a
closed ward. A grey February day and life is getting back to normal. The Allies have their
disagreements too: each presents a conflicting view of when the ground war will start.
Their voices rise in turn from the media, point counterpoint. Very soon, says one. Not for
some time, says another. Unlike Pat and Moda'i, this is an orchestrated harmony of
dissonance; for if one thing's sure, it's that they intend to keep the Iraqis guessing
about when the ground campaign will start. The U.S. is confident that it can finish the
ground war in a week. So says the radio, and the radio never lies. I still think they'll
need at least two. If this were Britain the bookies would be taking bets on it; in Britain
they probably are.
9:30 am. The radio announces that the U.S. has started using fire-bombs to clear
minefields. It sounds like a high-intensity modern version of napalm. I look out of the
window into the garden and see the flat rice-fields of Vietnam. Mental associations are
dangerous beasts. They say it's only to clear minefields. The radio says it so it must be
true. I wonder what else they have in their arsenal. If the sun were shining I could be
optimistic, I could reflect that this probably means the ground attack is approaching, and
therefore the end of the war. Under these grey clouds I can see only the rice-fields.
10:10 am. The radio suddenly switches to a loud, monotonous wail. The siren? No, can't
be, it's not rising and falling. Must be a technical fault. But I'm not sure. I hurry to
the kitchen. From the window I could swear I hear, faintly, the siren. The kids are in
school, what's happening there now? Then the kitchen radio falls silent, and a moment
later the announcer reassures us that it was indeed just a transmission fault. Not what he
knows we're all thinking.
So I couldn't have heard the siren from the window after all. My ears are playing
tricks on me. I'm surprised to notice how fast my heart is beating, even though I know it
wasn't the siren. I don't react like this when there's a real alert. Why now? Perhaps
because a daytime alert would be a major break in the pattern.
At 10:15 the radio tells us that the siren in Haifa was a false alarm. Perhaps some
siren operator was misled by the sound on the radio, too. At least I can still trust my
own ears. I take back what I said about Ori's parents jumping at every car backfire.
I go back to vacuuming the house. Back to Normal. There won't be an alert till tonight.
We can expect one tonight, there almost always is one on Friday nights. My heart won't
race when it comes, we'll be Back to Normal. What worries us is not the attack but the
unexpected.
3:30 pm. Gadi was in the Technion all morning and I was so busy cleaning and cooking
alone that I don't catch Saddam's announcement till now. Just as well, by 3:30 I have all
the reactions too. Saddam gives 6 impossible conditions for leaving Kuwait. Now the world
can get on with its favourite game of guessing. Perhaps the new American weapon, which
threatens to wipe out Saddam's carefully laid minefields, has forced his hand? But the
announcement sounds as if it was formulated slowly and carefully, not in a rush since
9:30 this morning. Perhaps this is another attempt to sow discord in the coalition,
among the Arab partners?
Meanwhile the bombing continues. The Allies hesitate for a moment, shrug their
collective shoulders, and it's Back to Normal. Bush must be feeling very relieved. The
least important objective of this war is to get the Iraqis out of Kuwait.
I hope the announcement doesn't mean that Saddam's getting desperate. We know that if
and when he feels he has nothing more to lose, he just might "go chemical", if
he can. I remember the warnings to the Arabs of Haifa.
I'm in the car as I hear all this, taking Liron to a birthday party (the kid's father
is manager of a movie theatre and the whole class is invited to a free and private showing
of whatever it is that kids enjoy. Indiana Jones, I think; it's at about the 10-year-old
level. Public movies haven't resumed in Haifa yet.) I continue to the Technion to check
some batch jobs I put in for the weekend. Next week we're moving to our new computer -- on
schedule despite all -- and I have some housekeeping to do on the files beforehand.
The library is closed, of course, but I find it awash in song. There's folk dancing on
the roof of the student centre, right next to the library. They usually have folk dancing
on Friday nights, but have missed a few weeks (B. of the S.) and are now resuming in the
afternoon instead. Quite a few students have gathered; not as many as I've seen on other
occasions, but not bad. Folk dancing plays an active role in the Israeli tradition we have
invented, as soon as a suitable new song appears, someone will be sure to fit a dance to
it. Liron is herself an avid folk dancer. At her age the boys think it's sissy, but by the
time they reach the Technion there are almost as many boys in the folk-dancing group as
girls. Unfortunately the main thing I remember about my own folk-dancing years is how hard
it was, as a 14-year-old youth group leader, to get the 8-year-old boys and girls to hold
hands when the dance required it. But it's nice to hear the music as I check my mail. The
sun has come out, too. Perhaps we really are getting back to normal.
And a quiet weekend to all of you, too.
Wednesday 13th February
Yair has been overloaded with homework since school restarted, and has got into the
habit of studying with one friend or another. Today the friend is Ori, whose family spent
the first part of the war "on holiday" in Cyprus. But by the time I get home at
5:15 they've decided to take a break and have gone out, presumably to the ball court. At
6:15 the phone rings. Ori's mother. Upon hearing that the boys are out she becomes frantic
with worry. Immediately, as if someone had flipped a switch from "low-tension"
to "high". "You mean they're out on the streets? AFTER DARK???!!!
It takes a while to convince her that this is a residential neighbourhood and the ball
court is surrounded by houses, including a high-rise apartment building with an excellent
communal sealed shelter. (I don't actually know if that shelter is sealed, all I know is
that it makes a wonderful place for birthday parties; but a helpful assumption never hurt
anyone, did it?) From the way she reacted, you'd think we lived in a solitary tent in the
middle of the Carmel National Park.
"Ori's father'll have a heart attack if he hears of this!" she cries. And she
makes me promise to go out, now, to the ball court, round up the delinquents and shepherd
them home. And call her back. I sigh and out I go. The kids aren't at the ball court. That
probably means they've gone on to another friend and will phone me at 9 pm to ask for a
lift home. I wonder what to tell Ori's mother; decide to wait for her to phone me back.
Luckily the boys arrive home 10 minutes after I do: they'd gone to a different ball court,
slightly farther away. Ori pales when he hears his mother has phoned. "My dad'll have
a HEART ATTACK if he hears of this!" he says. And his first words when he phones
(which I have to force him to do) are: "Mum, don't tell Dad!"
I am beginning to understand who it was who dreamt up the trip to Cyprus. Luckily Ori's
father is in the army right now (reserve duty) and unlikely to discover how near his son
came to disaster through association with mine.
I hope Ori comes over some more. It's probably good for him to spend a few hours now
and then with people who don't jump every time a car backfires. When he returned from
Cyprus he was much tenser than he was when he returned from 2 hours in the ball court with
Yair (until he heard his mother had called, that is). In fact the first few days after his
return Yair spent a lot of time on the phone reassuring Ori that life in Haifa is livable.
Children are mostly affected by how their parents react, not by the situation itself (with
the possible exception of the babies and toddlers, for whom being in those plastic
gas-proof "incubators" must be stressful enough, however their parents react).
I'm reminded of Joey, a huge boxer whose ferocious appearance hides a gentle soul
(really he should have been born a St. Bernard). Joey belongs to a friend down the road.
Every time the siren sounds, she says, Joey races for their Sealed Room and sits there
shaking, his heart going pit-a-pat. She puts her arms around him (when they sit on the
floor they're about the same height) and tries to soothe him, but it's difficult to
explain to a dog. But this tells me more about her family's initial reactions to the
alerts than perhaps she wanted me to know. Joey's reaction, after all, sounds like a
classic Pavlovian response. Surely his fear was triggered by fear among his humans, and
since this was always associated with the siren, the sound soon became the trigger for
Joey's fear, even though the panic of the humans has distinctly lessened. Poor Joey! He
doesn't even know what he's scared of.
Thursday 14th February.
There have been no missiles for 2 days and we have slept gratefully. The nearest thing
to an alert has been the car engines, or, especially, motorcycles, especially when they
accelerate uphill in low gear. You hear the note rise gradually from low to high and you
tense; then a one-second pause; it's not followed by a corresponding descent, high to low,
and you relax. It was only a car, after all. Then, and only then, you notice you had
tensed. I'm somewhat ashamed to find myself reacting in this way, perhaps because of its
dissonance with the self-image I would like to preserve. But I think even the first notes
of Gerschwin's Rhapsody in Blue would bring most of Israel to its collective feet at the
moment.
I recently heard (perhaps from the other Israeli diarists? -- I forget) that our
consumption of chocolate has risen by 45 to 50% since the war started. Here I'm a big
offender; is this also evidence for being tense? How depressing. On the other hand, how
comforting to know that I can Blame It On The War.
I'm trying not to comment on the attack on the Iraqi bunker. On the human level,
anything an outside commentator can say is trite and inadequate. On the political, there's
enough rhetoric bouncing around already. What I don't understand is why people should be
surprised. Saddam has a well-established policy of placing military facilities in
population centres (so, incidentally, does the PLO in Lebanon) and of placing civilians,
his own or the enemy's, in military installations. It must have been clear to the Allies
from the start that a military bunker of strategic importance would have a high chance of
also housing civilians. So someone must have taken the decision from the start, that this
is not a sufficient reason for not hitting military targets. What's the alternative? Once
a "human shield" can be shown to work, Saddam has only to place civilians in all
military installations and he's stopped the Allied attack. There is no way to fight a
completely moral war.
I'm reminded of Churchill's decision in WWII, not to evacuate the city of Coventry even
though intercepted German messages showed that it was to be bombed. Britain decided to
accept massive civilian casualties rather than take steps which would have signaled the
Germans that their military codes had been broken. Soldiers' lives are always
"worth" more than civilian lives in war, even if the civilians are your own,
because it's the soldiers who determine the outcome of the battle. You can wrangle about
whether 400 actual civilian deaths are a justifiable price to pay for the potential saving
of 20 times as many soldiers' lives, and about whether it matters if the soldiers and
civilians are on the same or opposite sides. What it boils down to is that you cannot
fight a humane or moral war, and all the wrangling is either propaganda or an attempt to
square your self-image as humane and moral with that sad fact.
I cannot look at the tear-worn face of the man who says "I lost my wife and 2
children. Is that fair?" No, it isn't fair. War is not fair. Life is not fair either,
and death almost never. The question is beside the point, but still I cannot bear to look
at his face. I think it very probable that the U.S. will try to demolish the other
military bunkers in Baghdad, whether or not there are civilians inside. The alternative is
to leave the command and communications centers functioning in the approaching ground
battle. I only hope the Iraqi population will now have the sense to stay out of what may
have been presented to them as "public air-raid shelters". (I wouldn't be
surprised if they didn't even know there are military command posts below them.)
Well, that was the result of trying not to comment.
Before I leave work, a colleague shares with me the latest news. A friend of a
friend...of a friend who listens to the Arabic radio channels reports that the Arab
station(s) have been urging all the Arabs to leave Haifa this weekend. The grapevine is
very efficient. I make a mental note of whom not to tell. Ori's parents head the list.
Undoubtedly the rumour arouses some slight feeling of apprehension. If it's true, we're in
for an interesting weekend. I wonder which channel(s) broadcast it. There are 3
possibilities: Iraq (if they're still broadcasting), Jordan, or the PLO in Lebanon. I
wonder if it's a real threat or a contribution to the war of nerves.
I decide not to tell my own children either; in the end I tell only Gadi. "Just
like the War of Independence," is his immediate comment. He's right: then too, the
Arab countries warned the Arabs of Haifa to get out and let them mop up the Jews
unhampered. It'd only take a few days, they said. Those who left have been stranded in
Gaza and the West Bank ever since, "personae non gratae" to all the countries
who told them to leave as well as to Israel. I wonder how many of them will believe their
radio this time.
8 pm. By the time I wander into the living-room, the earliest of the evening news
broadcasts is already in the middle of a subtitled English- language report on the bunker
bombing. It takes about 2 minutes to realise that this isn't a CNN report. It's too
comprehensive, too even-handed.
Right, says Gadi, it's NBC.
When you can tell whether a report emanates from CNN or not, just by the tone, in 2
minutes flat, you know CNN isn't broadcasting news. Not objective news, anyway. In fact
the 2 Israeli TV channels sometimes cut a few pictures from CNN reports into their own
news, but almost never relay a complete CNN report, and I can't blame them. We get NBC
reports; we get ABC's Nightline, both duly subtitled. Those who want CNN have to watch it
on Lebanon (and I assume the central area, which is too far away to receive Lebanon, gets
it on Jordan. I can't get Jordanian TV, I'm too far away from them, so I can't check the
point.) Having watched it on Lebanon, I have to admit I agree with the policy of the
Israeli stations. CNN has placed itself too firmly in the Iraqi camp to be acceptable as
"news".
What does it help to be the biggest voice in Baghdad, if you pay for it with your
independence and your integrity?
Friday 15th February.
A dull, grey day. Low clouds and a cold, dry north-east wind: a winter hamsin. The
trees rock in the gusts, tall ships riding out the wind-waves; the geraniums in the
window-box shiver. The radio can find no more cheerful fare than the widening gap between
the cost of living index and the level of wages. After this it brings us the current
argument between the honourable and cultured Ministers Pat and Moda'i, each of which,
according to the other, himself needs the Ministrations of a white-coated attendant in a
closed ward. A grey February day and life is getting back to normal. The Allies have their
disagreements too: each presents a conflicting view of when the ground war will start.
Their voices rise in turn from the media, point counterpoint. Very soon, says one. Not for
some time, says another. Unlike Pat and Moda'i, this is an orchestrated harmony of
dissonance; for if one thing's sure, it's that they intend to keep the Iraqis guessing
about when the ground campaign will start. The U.S. is confident that it can finish the
ground war in a week. So says the radio, and the radio never lies. I still think they'll
need at least two. If this were Britain the bookies would be taking bets on it; in Britain
they probably are.
9:30 am. The radio announces that the U.S. has started using fire-bombs to clear
minefields. It sounds like a high-intensity modern version of napalm. I look out of the
window into the garden and see the flat rice-fields of Vietnam. Mental associations are
dangerous beasts. They say it's only to clear minefields. The radio says it so it must be
true. I wonder what else they have in their arsenal. If the sun were shining I could be
optimistic, I could reflect that this probably means the ground attack is approaching, and
therefore the end of the war. Under these grey clouds I can see only the rice-fields.
10:10 am. The radio suddenly switches to a loud, monotonous wail. The siren? No, can't
be, it's not rising and falling. Must be a technical fault. But I'm not sure. I hurry to
the kitchen. From the window I could swear I hear, faintly, the siren. The kids are in
school, what's happening there now? Then the kitchen radio falls silent, and a moment
later the announcer reassures us that it was indeed just a transmission fault. Not what he
knows we're all thinking.
So I couldn't have heard the siren from the window after all. My ears are playing
tricks on me. I'm surprised to notice how fast my heart is beating, even though I know it
wasn't the siren. I don't react like this when there's a real alert. Why now? Perhaps
because a daytime alert would be a major break in the pattern.
At 10:15 the radio tells us that the siren in Haifa was a false alarm. Perhaps some
siren operator was misled by the sound on the radio, too. At least I can still trust my
own ears. I take back what I said about Ori's parents jumping at every car backfire.
I go back to vacuuming the house. Back to Normal. There won't be an alert till tonight.
We can expect one tonight, there almost always is one on Friday nights. My heart won't
race when it comes, we'll be Back to Normal. What worries us is not the attack but the
unexpected.
3:30 pm. Gadi was in the Technion all morning and I was so busy cleaning and cooking
alone that I don't catch Saddam's announcement till now. Just as well, by 3:30 I have all
the reactions too. Saddam gives 6 impossible conditions for leaving Kuwait. Now the world
can get on with its favourite game of guessing. Perhaps the new American weapon, which
threatens to wipe out Saddam's carefully laid minefields, has forced his hand? But the
announcement sounds as if it was formulated slowly and carefully, not in a rush since 9:30
this morning. Perhaps this is another attempt to sow discord in the coalition, among the
Arab partners?
Meanwhile the bombing continues. The Allies hesitate for a moment, shrug their
collective shoulders, and it's Back to Normal. Bush must be feeling very relieved. The
least important objective of this war is to get the Iraqis out of Kuwait.
I hope the announcement doesn't mean that Saddam's getting desperate. We know that if
and when he feels he has nothing more to lose, he just might "go chemical", if
he can. I remember the warnings to the Arabs of Haifa.
I'm in the car as I hear all this, taking Liron to a birthday party (the kid's father
is manager of a movie theatre and the whole class is invited to a free and private showing
of whatever it is that kids enjoy. Indiana Jones, I think; it's at about the 10-year-old
level. Public movies haven't resumed in Haifa yet.) I continue to the Technion to check
some batch jobs I put in for the weekend. Next week we're moving to our new computer -- on
schedule despite all -- and I have some housekeeping to do on the files beforehand.
The library is closed, of course+, but I find it awash in song. There's folk dancing on
the roof of the student centre, right next to the library. They usually have folk dancing
on Friday nights, but have missed a few weeks (B. of the S.) and are now resuming in the
afternoon instead. Quite a few students have gathered; not as many as I've seen on other
occasions, but not bad. Folk dancing plays an active role in the Israeli tradition we have
invented, as soon as a suitable new song appears, someone will be sure to fit a dance to
it. Liron is herself an avid folk dancer. At her age the boys think it's sissy, but by the
time they reach the Technion there are almost as many boys in the folk-dancing group as
girls. Unfortunately the main thing I remember about my own folk-dancing years is how hard
it was, as a 14-year-old youth group leader, to get the 8-year-old boys and girls to hold
hands when the dance required it. But it's nice to hear the music as I check my mail. The
sun has come out, too. Perhaps we really are getting back to normal.
And a quiet weekend to all of you, too.
<< 1: January, 1991 || TOC
