First-hand account of last night's prayer vigil at the Western Wall, by my intelligent and holy friend, Simcha (husband of Beth of House of Joy. Get it? House of Joy? Beth . . . Simcha . . . yeah, it took me a long time to catch on to that myself. In the end, Beth had to spell it out for me, and I was like "D'uh!").

Clarification

The last few days I've been feeling a lot of anxiety and sadness. There's nothing in my own personal life that warrants those feelings; I'm doing my writing thing, working in cafes, enjoying the nice weather, etc. But it's a tough time to be a person who loves Israel, right now. And it's even tougher if you live here. And living in Jerusalem is always intense, especially now. And for me there is the added quandary of, as someone so eloquently put it on the phone last night: "things would be a lot simpler for you if you were unreservedly anti-disengagement."

Ah, yes, the woes of having a nuanced, multi-faceted world outlook.

I feel I owe an explanation of something to my readers. Six months ago, I published this post about my views about disengaging. I thought it was clear, from that post, that I am not "unreservedly" anything. That, indeed, I have lots and lots of reservations, about a great many things.

Then last week, I made the mistake of busting out like Rambo, criticizing the Orange movement for the prominent participation of children (a criticism by which I still stand, though I hear and respect some of the arguments against me). I did not take into account that most people's lives don't revolve around my blog, :-) , and that therefore the post from six months ago just might, maybe, have been forgotten.

So I think some of you assumed, from my posts of last week, that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool member of the Shinui party, or a secret participant in Shalom Achshav, or simply that I don't have any sympathy at all for my fellow Jews. Nothing could be further from the truth. (No offense to Shinui or Shalom Achshav. I'm just saying I haven't made any decisions whatsoever about joining any sort of political party or movement).

The truth -- the whole truth -- is that I have a large, messy jumble of thoughts and feelings about the disengagement. My criticisms about children happened to be the thought at the forefront of my mind when I happened to feel like blogging a few days ago. In other words, it was the most easily elucidated and accessible concept for me as a writer in that moment. I could just as easily have chosen to start with another of my messy, jumbled thoughts -- such as, for example, how bothered I am by the attitudes and actions of the Israeli police; or why I don't think a referendum would necessarily have been a good idea; or how I think that each of the settlers should indeed be given a huge compensation package and, yes, whatever nice beachfront property they want; or how hypocriticial I think it is when anti-disengagement people complain now about Israel "not being a real democracy," when other groups, such as Israeli Arabs, have been complaining about the same stuff for years and the right wing/ dati-leumi community never seemed to care until they/we were the victims -- etc etc etc.

I could have just as easily written about those topics, except that a topic is not "easy" for me until I have some combination of both facts and an internal fire for the idea. Choosing one aspect of the disengagement to write about is, for me, like waiting for a flock of birds to suddenly decide together, inexplicably, that now they are picking up and flying away. I can't explain exactly why I favor some topics over others on a particular day.

The point of all this is: Just because I'm not writing about something, does not mean I am not thinking about it. I've been meaning, for example, to write a post denouncing the murder, by a Jewish Israeli, of four innocent Druzes in Shfaram . . . . but unfortunately have not been able to make the time. It's hard to get to everything. I often feel very bad about all the things I feel I should be writing about, but am not.

I think most of you knew that. But it beares emphasizing that my opinion about one aspect of the disengagement implies absolutely nothing -- nothing -- about my opinion on any other aspect. I would appreciate it if certain commenters would refrain from knee-jerk reactions and read my posts as commentary on stand-alone topics. The temptation to use my comments section as a bulletin board for advertising one's opinions about irrelevant ideas is very understandable . . . but I would appreciate it if people would try to resist it (as most of you do).

When I write that I am "thinly pro-disengagement," I mean that if I were in a position to make decisions about what happens in this country, I think, all things considered, that I'd probably weigh in on the side of disengaging. But . . . . I'm not in a position to make decisions, except insofar as I'll be able to vote in the next election. And therefore, I am free to feel and express all the doubts and misgivings that any thinking, intelligent person would feel about something of controversy and vital importance. This blog is where I do that. If you are looking for black-and-white thinking, I suggest you go elsewhere. If you are open to nuance, stick around. I might have something for you over the next few days. (Or, maybe not. Maybe the flock of birds will decide to blog about something else, like the article in the New York Times announcing that someone invented a mango slicer! I need one of those!)

Alright, I'm off to run errands and then go to the Kotel. Ciao, my readers. This blog would be nothing without you.

How much time is enough time?

I was looking over my original post about the disengagement (see yesterday for the link), and am reminded to blog something I've been wondering about for a while. I'm interested in hearing (respectful) input from others about this.

How much "lead" time is enough for warning Gaza settlers they have to move? How much time is enough time to plan a smooth operation for everyone involved? (Those are two separate questions; the answer to the second, obviously, is "more than Israel allowed for.")

The Israeli Cabinet approved the disengagement less than six months ago. In terms of telling people they have to move, I'm of two minds as to whether this is enough time. On one hand, it took me more than six months just to plan an RV trip for NCSY! Here you have large families, with jobs and school and lives, having to figure out where they will go next - and, in many cases, how they will reconfigure their careers. That's a lot to put on a person with less than six months notice.

On the other hand, it's doable in six months, for most people. When under intense pressure, most people can whip up a new situation for themselves in six months -- it's just that, well, that's a lot of pressure. And, for people whose livelihoods were based in Gaza, there's almost no way to effectively create a new life in that time.

What do you think?

In terms of my second question, I'm of two minds on this also. It's glaringly obvious that there was no way a disengagement would go smoothly with only 6 months notice. There are so many minute decisions to be made, both within Israel and between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, that there was just no way. Security questions. Trade questions. Border questions. Compensation to the settlers questions. Where they'll move to questions. Psychological/ social work questions.

No way.

On the other hand, the way things move in this neck of the woods, I can't much blame Israel for deciding to move swiftly, once they decided to move. The more lead time they gave, the more time there would have been for the opposition to grow and grow and become more and more organized, creating even more obstacles and more problems to deal with for them.

I've often compared the disengagement to a traumatic amputation, along the lines of "cutting off the leg to save the heart." In effect, in moving so fast, Israel was saying "Just do it. Do it quickly, before we change our minds."

But no matter how you slice it or try to justify it, the people suffering the most are the families packing up their bags and getting ready to leave their homes in a few days, knowing that shortly thereafter those homes will be razed to the ground. It's a terrible image (it actually kept me up last night, crying), no matter what your politics are.

Whoa

Somehow, mysteriously, haloscan just decided to let me see the comments on my blog again.

I am agape (though not completely surprised) at the level of animosity in the comments to my last few posts, and disappointed at the number of people who called each other's opinions "crap" and such. That is so sad. I hate it when that happens on my own blog.

And let's not even get started with the fact that one of the first and most heatedly argumentative commenters is my own sister (I love you, Rivka, kissy-kissy from your sissy!)

Still, better a heated written argument on a blog than bullets on the field, that's what I always say (actually, I never said it until just now, but it has quite a nice ring to it, doesn't it?)

To the person who wondered, after a post of mine about a week ago, why I don't give my reasons for being "thinly pro-disengagement," this is it! Because if I got this kind of flack for writing about something as seemingly "something we might agree on" as children's participation in the anti-disengagement movement, imagine how much I'd have to monitor the comments if I actually forayed into talking about why I think disengaging makes sense!

Yeah, I know, if I had more guts I'd just go for broke. But I don't have time to monitor the comments like that, OK? My blog, my decision. On the blog, I'll do what I feel like, when I feel like it. Maybe that will be today, maybe tomorrow, maybe never. I'm busy. I have a Kotel to go to and a country I love very much to worry about. If I ever run for political office I'll be more conscientous about making my opinions more transparent. Meanwhile, I'm just a blogger.

Meanwhile, here's one thing I do have to say against Sharon's decision: Is it just my imagination, or did he (Sharon, that is) never give a strong, public statement about why he thinks disengaging makes sense? I mean, those of us who happen to think it's not a bad idea might have our own opinions about why, but maybe my idea about why is not Sharon's idea about why. It would have been considerate of him to let us know why, and why now, don't you think? Doesn't do much good for national unity if even those of us who are "thinly" behind him don't really know what he's thinking. It makes it much harder to make a case for what he's doing in the face of something tangible like entire communities of our own people being emptied and turned into rubble.

I've been hearing a lot of criticism to the effect that "even those who are pro-disengagement are against how the disengagement is being carried out" and in many ways I agree. Not all ways, but many ways. The Israeli government hasn't been good about hasbara (PR/ "explaining our side") when it comes to the conflict with the Palestinians (or, as some commenters might prefer, "the Arabs living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza" - whatever you want to call them, there they are), and now it's not doing a good job of hasbara when it comes to uprooting beautiful communities full of fellow Jews.

At least with the Palestinian conflict, there is the obvious reasoning that we have terrorists to worry about and deal with. But with the disengagement, much more hasbara is called for, because the big question is why now? If we do not understand why now, then we cannot understand why.

***UPDATE***
Thanks to Renegade Rebbetzin for remembering and finding my original post about the disengagment (now with update!) Interesting to see which parts of that post still resonate for me, almost 6 months later, and which do not (most of it still does). I never would have bothered to find the URL without her. Thanks, Ren Reb.

Going to the Kotel

I'm planning to go to the Kotel (Western Wall) sometime this week, since it is

a) the Nine Days of mourning and

b) a very worrisome time in the history of the State of Israel.

Not that I need an excuse to go to the Kotel, but you know what I'm saying.

I'm going to pray for the physical and inner peace of the residents of Gaza (and to those of you who would accuse me of being hypocritical in this . . . excuse me, but I'm still a human being, with a heart, no matter how much my political opinions might differ from yours!), and of all the soldiers and policepeople who are embarking on a very traumatic mission. I'll pray that whatever happens, it happens peacefully, and that the people involved emerge from it as psychologically whole as possible, and that we will find ways to stay united as a country.

I'll pray that whatever happens next week is in the best long-term interest of Israel, even if we do not immediately understand how that could be.

I'll also be making personal prayers for myself and others; if you have anything specific you'd like me to pray for on your behalf at the Wall, feel free to send me a private email at chayyeisarah at yahoo dot com.

Why I haven't responded to comments

The last couple of days, I've been able to post blog posts, but Haloscan comments haven't been showing on my computer. Whenever I try to go to the Haloscan site, it tells me "The document contains no data."

I figured it must be a general Haloscan problem, since when I went to other sites that use Haloscan, I couldn't see their comments, either. I thought "Darn, I wrote two posts about a subtansive issue, and no one can leave comments! Stupid, stupid haloscan!"

But now I'm visiting friends and using their computer . . . and lo and behold, there are 20 comments to my first post about children involved in anti-pullout activities.

So, first of all, sorry that I haven't been responding to comments. I wasn't ignoring you all. I simply couldn't see what you'd written.

Second, no, I do not think that having a 5-year-old attend a rally and having a 5-year-old dress up in a suicide bomber costume is the same thing at all. Nor do I think that 15-year-olds who attempt to enter a closed military zone to make a point are the same as 15-year-olds who attempt to infiltrate borders in order to blow up other people.

What I'm saying is that as things heat up, and we've got teenagers burning fires on highways and threatening to kill themselves in a mass suicide attempt, the differences between "their" exploitation of children and "our" exploitation of children is getting smaller and smaller.

Again, I am not saying that there are no differences. I'm saying that having children get involved is very, very problematic and we should be looking hard at ourselves.

Why do you think it is, those of you who are disagreeing with me, that the Yesha Council specifically asked youth to attempt to infiltrate Gaza?

If not because youthful passions are easily manipulated, or because images of the army dragging around 14-year-olds wouldn't create more sympathy for the protesters, then why? Why not encourage adults to do it?

Please notice that nowhere in these particular posts am I making any cases for or against the disengagement itself. Even if we were talking about "the side" I'm on (and really, ultimately, I'm on the side of the Jewish People and the State of Israel; perhaps my opinions about what is best for us differ from yours, but my ultimate loves are the people, the land, the State, and the Torah of the Jews) I'd still have very deep problems with the idea of getting children involved in a heated situation.

Anyhow, Shabbat Shalom to one and all. Thank you for respectfully disagreeing with me, if you do.

"Using children to do the dirty work . . . "*

Pursuant to my post of yesterday (did I just use the word "pursuant" correctly?), Ha'aretz had an interesting series of reports about last night's march from Ofakim to Gaza, and its aftermath.

Money quote (did I just use that correctly?):

A senior Israel Defense Forces officer told Israel Radio on Thursday morning that the young pullout opponents attempting to enter Gaza illegally were endangering their lives.

An infiltration warning near Nisanit overnight put all IDF forces in the area on high alert. Troops were called to the scene and, just before they opened fire, it became clear the infiltrators were pullout opponents and not Palestinian gunmen.

Colonel Yossi Morali, commander of the IDF's northern Gaza brigade, told the radio he fears a disaster. He noted this was not the first incident of its kind. Morali said some of the infiltrators arrested in Nisanit overnight were 10- and 11-year-old children who did not understand what was going on. One of the children collapsed during the events.

I rest my case.

* I lifted that phrase from Allison.

Blessed be the children: Tough questions for tough times

For many years, the world-wide Jewish community has been using the youth of suicide bombers and other Palestinian "militants" to make a negative point about Palestinian culture.

"What kind of sickness is rotting them," we ask, "if instead of teaching their children to become productive members of society, they teach their kids that if they don't attain their political aims, that if they must grow up without their own state, that it is better not to grow up at all?"

Since the start of the anti-disengagement movement, I've been uneasy about the preponderance of young people -- teenagers and even children -- who have been involved in anti-pullout activities, including the peaceful ones.

First there were the teenagers who helped to block roads. My friends (many of whom have very small children) and I wondered out loud: If we had a child of 15, 16, 17 years, would we allow them to go and block roads as part of a civil disobedience movement?

On one hand, isn't it important for teens to be aware of their political environment? Is it not important to teach children to get involved in their world, to stand up for their convictions?

On the other hand, how many of these kids truly understand all the issues? How many do what they do because they really get it, and how many get involved to be with their friends or because they have picked up a fiery, though not-well-substantiated, passion from their parents and teachers? How many might become more left-leaning later in life (as I did myself) when they come to have a more nuanced view of their geopolitical environment? Does any of that matter, if they are doing now what they believe to be correct, for whatever reason?

What is more important, to teach our kids to get involved, or to teach them not to break laws, not to try to get arrested? (During that time I spent Shabbat with a family who had teens, and the kids were talking about their friends' efforts to get arrested.)

Then came the day, during the road blocking era, that I saw a group of kids and what seemed to be their teacher or one of their parents, burning a tire and other trash just over the curb at a busy intersection -- that is, they were burning it on the street, just inches away from where cars were stopping for red lights.

This was really dangerous and marked a turning point for me. It was the first time I thought "the Israeli adults are using the kids." It's one thing for 13-year-olds to stand by the side of a highway handing out orange ribbons and a smile. It's another thing to mix cars and lapping flames.

Then started the waves of people moving into Gaza, before Gaza became a restricted military zone. It was unclear what would happen to those people or how violent their situation might become. (In hindsight, it's been non-violent so far, but there was no way to know that then . . . and we're not done yet, either.) A friend told me that her neighbors, whom I have met on many occassions, had moved with their small children to Gush Katif and were living there in a tent.

I asked my friend what she thinks about the idea of bringing small children into a potentially traumatic situation, and she sighed and said "I don't know. I don't know."

There were the pictures that made international news, of Israeli soldiers packing West Bank settlers, who had entered Gaza, onto buses to send them home, and the kerchief-clad mother with an adorable red-headed child, sadly looking out of a bus window as she was forced to leave.

Excellent PR for the protesters, I thought. The world is seeing that the IDF is pushing around mothers and babies. Jewish mothers and babies.

But what kind of mother brings her baby into a situation that will, by definition, almost certainly involve soldiers?

Lehavdil (that is, I'm not making a direct comparison), when a Palestinian child is shot by the IDF, we blame the terrorists. We say "it's not our fault. That is what happens when terrorists hide behind children. The children get shot sometimes."

If that is the case . . . if bringing children into a potentially violent or otherwise traumatic situation indicates negligence of the children . . . then why are there so many children involved in the anti-disengagement movement? The movement so far has been relatively peaceful (for which I sincerely applaud its leaders), but everyone knows it takes only a few crazy people and some guns to turn a peaceful rally into a riot.

If, God forbid, any children get hurt in Ofakim tonight, or at any time during the Gaza pullout, whose fault will it be? That of the IDF? or of the parents who didn't tell their under-age children to stay home and do their homework? Any Israeli who says the former while blaming Palestinians for the deaths of their own kids is being a hypocrite.

Today I read this, for me the last straw. Teenage residents of Gaza threatening to drown themselves if they are evacuated.

What disease is rotting our culture if teens are allowed to believe that if they can't live in the part of Israel of their choice, that if they will be forced to grow up in some other area of Israel, that it is better not to grow up at all?

If we want to continue seeing ourselves as "better" than our Palestinian neighbors, this blatant using of, and in some cases psychological negligence or abuse of, our young people must stop. I would like to believe that if my kid were threatening to kill himself -- possibly because he sees that I, too, am extremely depressed -- that I would pull myself together fast and remove my family from the situation before it was too late. The question of leaving Gaza is extremely important, and the Jews who live there are undergoing a traumatic and crucial period of their lives. But is Gaza more important than the lives of our children?

If so, can we then blame the Palestinians for believing that a state of their own is more important than their children, or our children?

In a democratic society, the adults should be free to express themselves and fight non-violently for their convictions. But before getting kids involved, we adults should ask ourselves: What messages are the kids really getting? What are we really teaching them?

[Update: for those of you who have arrived at this post by following a link from another blog . . . welcome! And, please note that the next two posts on my blog are also on the topic of children and the disengagement. Please read those next two posts before commenting, especially if you were about to write a comment to the effect that I'm a horrible, self-hating, uber-liberal terrorist-lover. Thanks!]

Ofakim on my mind

I'm fascinated by the drama that will play out tonight.

Last night, between 25,000 and 50,000 (depending on whom you ask) people rallied in Sderot against the disengagement. If you look on a map, Sderot is sort of just to the north-east of Gaza.

Many of those people then travelled to Ofakim, more directly to the east of Gaza, and camped there last night. A friend who went to the rally with her family, and whose husband plans to return to Ofakim tonight, told me that a lot of people are sort of coming in and out of the Ofakim group, balancing their protest activities with other responsibilities like work and family, while maintaining a steady stream of activity.

Tonight, the plan is for thousands of people to rally in Ofakim at 6:30 pm and then march to Gaza in an attempt to infiltrate the closed military zone. Their goal is to flood the Jewish settlements there with so many people that evacuating them in less than 2 weeks will become impossible.

The police and army, of course, have vowed not to allow anyone to infiltrate.

But after the protest 2 weeks ago at Kfar Maimon, the IDF admitted that it cannot "hermetically seal" the Gaza Strip.

So the big question for tonight is: Will the protesters get in? How many? Will there be fighting?

Thought for the day: If the Israeli security forces fail tonight in controlling the law-defying efforts of relatively mainstream, self-avowedly non-violent right-wing protesters . . . then how much weight will our complaints carry, when we blame the PA for not controlling the terrorists?

I am not equating right-wing protesters to terrorists, God forbid! I'm saying that if Israel can't even uphold its own laws against the forces of civil disobedience, then it won't mean much when we hold the PA responsible for not controlling terrorists, who presumably are much more driven to carry out their plans. Terrorists, for example, don't hold meetings with the police to work out agreements ahead of time about how many people will be involved in their schemes or the routes of their travels, as the organizers of this week's anti-disengagement protests did.

On the other hand . . . . maybe this goes to show why civil disobedience works better than terrorism. A normal goverment can and should be much harder pressed to take violent action against peaceful, though law-breaking, protesters. One could reasonably expect the PA to wield a much stronger hand against murderers than the Israeli government is against people attempting to sneak into Gush Katif and pitch tents in solidarity with their countrymen.

On the other hand . . . they are breaking the law, in a stated attempt to thwart a government action for which the entire world is waiting.

Things that make you go hm.

Good week to rearrange my sock drawer

Sigh.

Poor R.

:-(