Don Sable
Many reading this column have probably been closely following the war with Iran through the media. My wife and I experienced the first month of the war firsthand as we had been in Israel since two days before the fighting began and returned home as originally planned about four weeks ago.
In the past, we traveled to Israel once a year to see our son and good friends, and to support the country with our visits and purchases. Once we had grandchildren there, we visited twice a year to see and stay with our two grandchildren, son and daughter-in-law who live in central Israel.
I have heard and read that some in America think that Israelis are very afraid of the dangers they have been facing due to the Iranian missiles, shrapnel or Hezbollah rockets that have landed there. I did not see that during my in-person observations of Israelis while we were there.
Instead, I saw a resilient, courageous and confident people resigned to the fact that the great sacrifices they are making and the very difficult circumstances they have to put up with are worth it in the end.
Those in buildings similar to where we stayed at our family’s place with a safe room (a mamad in Hebrew) within the residence might describe having to go into it a few times in the middle of the night and several times throughout the day as very disruptive. Those in older residences without a safe room or a bomb shelter within the building and who have to leave their building to go to a safe space somewhere in their neighborhood during the day and night would probably describe it as extremely difficult and stressful, especially if they have young children or are elderly.
I have also heard that the country was locked down in a state of siege. That needs to be clarified and explained.
Those living in northern cities such as Nahariya and other places near Lebanon are indeed in a state of siege, as they only get about 15 seconds of warning to go into a safe room before a rocket from Hezbollah might strike their area. The situations vary as evidenced by the fact that the Tzofar Red Alert app we used showed many citizens with approximately 1.5 to 8 minutes of notice to seek shelter depending upon where one lives in Israel.
With such advance notices being given, coffee shops, cafes, playgrounds and shopping centers in various parts of the center of the country such as Tel Aviv, other major cities and those near where we stayed were full of people, with nearly everyone knowing where the closest safe room or shelter was located.
In addition, while we were in Israel, we walked or drove four times to see a well-attended activity organized by one of our grandchildren’s preschools at a place not far from our family’s residence. Furthermore, the second Shabbat we were there, and after there had been a week of fighting, all six of us took a drive up north to the Carmel region to take a hike on a well-known trail, as our son had seen on the alert app that the area had not been targeted with missiles or rockets to that point. Subsequently, that changed that night with numerous rockets being fired at that area from Hezbollah, probably on the orders of Iran.
Israel is doing the hard work again for an unappreciative Western world, at least this time with the U.S., while paying a heavy price in missile attacks upon Israeli cities and citizens resulting in deaths, injuries, property destruction, in-person school closures, tourism becoming non-existent, the economy taking a major hit, and the related stress and difficulty of working at home at the same time.
This is all happening while England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada and other Western countries continue to share ridiculous, thoughtless and biased comments in criticizing needed defensive measures by Israel, such as removing the weapons, military equipment and terror threats of Hezbollah in Lebanon in violation of U.N. Resolution 1701, which prohibits Hezbollah from having weapons between the Litani River and Israel. Israel’s military actions in Lebanon reflect that it has had enough of suffering from Hezbollah rocket, mortar and projectile attacks for decades, including Hezbollah’s attack upon Israel the day after, and in support of, the despicable murders, rapes and hostage-taking of Israelis by terrorists and civilians from Gaza on the now infamous date of Oct. 7, 2023.
Such criticism of Israel in defending itself and fighting to curtail intolerable terrorist attacks by Hezbollah is reminiscent of the near-universal condemnation Israel received after its necessary preventive measure of destroying the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981 — with many Western observers reconsidering it a strategic and important success years later.
The best description of Israelis at this time is to call them resilient and, in general, in favor of the current war with Iran, as they realize it is better to face an Iran now without nuclear weapons compared to facing them later with nuclear weapons and more potent ballistic missiles.
Even though there is now a two-week ceasefire technically in place, let us hope the Trump administration and the American people have a similar resilience and an understanding of the need to only conclude this war once all the threatening military and related targets (including enriched uranium) have been destroyed and/or removed, with a hopeful resulting revolution and the overthrowing of the brutal religious dictatorship in Iran.
Don Sable is a real estate attorney, a retired commercial real estate broker, and an activist for a safe and secure America, Israel and Jewish people.