Why are two terrorist fanatics allowed to sabotage the Mideast peace process that is of so great importance to both the peoples of the Middle East and the world? Why is Israel in such a panic when the number of people killed by terrorists is so much smaller than the number killed by automobile accidents?
Stephen Franklin’s article “Market bombings erode gritty veneer of Israelis” (Main news) and Sema Chaimovitz Menora’s letter “Dayenu is enough” (Voice), both on Aug. 6, miss the point. What Israel is facing today is nothing in comparison with what the people of London faced during Hitler’s bombing in World War II. There was none of this kind of nonsense from London.
The difference is simple: leadership. London had Winston Churchill bolstering morale. Israel has Benjamin Netanyahu destroying morale and blaming everyone else but himself. That says it all.
I came to Israel in 1950 to the “pioneer society with people who readily sacrifice everything,” as Franklin quotes one person as saying. I saw the pioneering spirit destroyed by the Likud leadership and religious corruption. At the start of the Gulf War, I was in my apartment in Rehovot, Israel, when I heard the first warning of a Scud attack. I knew the danger of being killed by a Scud was tiny compared to what I faced every day driving between Rehovot and Tel Aviv.
I did not put on a gas mask and go to a sealed room. I went to bed and had a good night’s sleep until my daughter woke me calling from Chicago to tell me that CNN showed bombs falling on Tel Aviv. People panicked, and the schools and the economy ground to a halt, because there was no Churchill to bolster our morale. Not a single person was killed by these Scud attacks, and the damage done to the economy by people not working was much greater than that done by Scuds.
What Israel needs is the old pioneering spirit and a leadership that can bolster morale, ignore terrorism and move the peace process forward. Dayenu means “Enough of these complaining cowards!” Let’s get a good new leadership, get our act together and move on.
