All Quiet on the Global Front

What Israeli Civilians Are Saying About the Fabric of Daily Life

Since June 13th, feminist listserv groups (some list members secretly forward relevant exchanges to me) have remained silent, utterly silent, ever since Israel began its brilliant, bold, targeted strikes of Iran's nuclear infrastructure and of the nuclear scientists, military heads, etc.

Not a word about Israel doing the heavy lifting for the entire world and for the long-tyrannized people of Iran. Not a single, solitary word. All is quiet on this global front.

What did I expect? These women did nothing about the Iranian mullah's barbaric savagery towards Iranian women and towards perceived dissidents either. Some engaged in lip service about Afghanistan--but few launched campaigns to rescue actual, living, breathing Afghan women. This group did not even mildly shame the American female college students who voluntarily donned hijab and even niqab in campus demonstrations in favor of exterminating the Jews aka as "Free Palestine." They refused to call out Islamicists for forcibly face-veiling and head-veiling women and for committing all manner of gender-based atrocities.

On the other hand, the left-wing/left-stream mass media have not been silent. They almost immediately began condemning Israel, but not Iran, Trump but not Khamenei. They have continued to feature the suffering of the Gazans--but not that of Israelis under the most profound siege by Iranian-funded Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc.

They condemned only Israel for not feeding, safely sheltering, providing medical services to the very population that has supported Hamas's and other Islamist Iranian proxies. As my colleague, Larry Shapiro, a champion Canadian letter writer, has just said in response to Suzy Hansen's blood libel in New York Magazine (Hansen wrote that Israel is committing "one of the greatest war crimes of our time"):

"Major (ret) John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, has stated that the IDF has done more to protect civilian life than any Army in History. Except for Israel, has there been any other army in history expected to provide medical services to the people with whom it is at war? The answer is no...Not a word about Hamas and Hezbollah's launching of 30,000 missiles at Israel, one that killed 13 kids playing soccer...(not a word) about Hamas's atrocities on 10/7."

What's the news from Israel? What are the luckiest of ordinary civilians saying about the evisceration of daily life?

I've been in touch with Israeli civilians via email. Here is a little of what they just told me:

The children are terribly frightened. Everyone's sleep is constantly being interrupted by sirens and the urgent need to take shelter in a safe room or in a below ground bomb shelter.

People are very anxious. Both Europeans and Americans who were visiting Israel are now stranded there. The government has finally given a fifteen-minute musical warning (so as not to frighten the children), followed by a fifteen-second alarm, assuming that the children are already in shelters. Some people cannot make it to the shelters on time.

Relatives and neighbors continue to be wounded and murdered either in battle--or on their own streets. Israeli mental health services are doing their best to keep up with the increasing number of anxiety and PTSD patients. Adults are depressed, frightened, and tense. One friend says:

"Night after night of running to the miklat, day time too, sleep not only lost but disrupted so there is a constant feeling of jet lag. There is much worse. Food supplies if not everything is still holding up. We have electricity, water, no small things."

Another friend told me this:

"It's not easy on parents dealing with school cancellations and being in close range of shelters. Some of the few coffee shops that are still open is a mainstay of my existence. Bigger picture of course is the tremendous opportunity, if we don't blow it and with God's help. And at this particular moment it looks like God is sticking by us."

A third said:

"My child is fighting in Gaza but she became wounded and was sent home for a month. She went to Tel Aviv to meet up with friends and there she is as Iranian bombs fall on her. I am blowing up her phone, trying to check on her."

One wrote:

"We are okay thank God. But that fact that another group of humans wants to kill me with an ICBM just because I am alive is still shocking to your normally cynical friend."

My oldest friend still living, and in poor health, said:

"Pninela Yekara, We are sitting in an imperfect Mamad in our rented apartment. There are sirens waking us up several times each night. Ahava."

These people run the gamut from far Right to far Left. All, all are united. I have read nothing about the usual anti-Bibi demonstrators. Have you?

The families of the hostages, the families who are perpetually burying soldiers--what can they say except "my son died a hero fighting to save his country" and Baruch Dayan Emet. They will grieve for the rest of their days. As will all Israel, myself included.

Finally, my British friend with whom I co-led the Afghan rescue mission in 2021--2022 is in France right now. She tells me that demonstrations in Nice, France, sported Palestine flags. PM Macron has condemned Israeli action, as have China, Turkey, Canada, Spain, Norway, and Russia. So have the International Commission of Jurists, the United Nations, and celebrities of many other countries. None have revised their views. The UK keeps changing its mind on this.

As I once foresaw, this time round, it will be bigger than the Holocaust--the dream of exterminating the Jews has gone global--and Israel is the only one, so far, who has begun to fight back.

President Trump has got to get more fully out front now--we are the "Big Satan," Israel is only the "Little Satan." Khamenei has a bomb with America's name on it. We need to start remembering 9/11 and all the American soldiers who were murdered in the Middle East.