Uri Misgav - The Iron Dome over our consciences
Restraint? I’d like to see how Israelis would react if just once an F-16 squadron swooped down on a residential neighborhood and dropped a ton of smart bombs on it
My friend Eldad Yaniv happened to be in his apartment
building’s stairwell yesterday when the siren went off. “Where in the world is
there another place where they shoot at civilians?” one of the angry neighbors
complained. In Gaza , Eldad replied.
The neighbors responded: “Gaza ? I
wish 10 children would die there every day,” “They’re all born animals there,
anyway,” and “To hell with the state of Tel Aviv.”
The building, by the way, is in north Tel Aviv and the
people my friend ran into experience a siren or two a day followed by an
immediate, successful interception. Mission
accomplished. The Israelis are morons again. The Iron Dome developers have created a technological wonder
and saved many lives. But on the strategic level their brilliant invention is
not without its damaging effects. It enables Israelis to feel protected while
continuing their life almost without a hitch. They can blow up their feelings
of victimization and misery to new heights, while going on about their business
relatively comfortably. They can be glued to the radio and television while at
the same time remaining exempt from any soul searching or critical scrutiny of
the repeated, unending cycle of hostility and violence.
Iron Dome is the Israeli governments’ doomsday weapon. It
enables them to launch a “limited operation” once every two years, to refill
the hatred and demonization reserves and renew the confidence of their obedient
subjects, who only a day or two ago began to realize that their government was
deceiving them. With one swipe the government has wiped away the reports of
recession, the defense budget, the senior officials’ wages, police corruption,
the rightists’ frenzied rampage and the incitement. And all for the bearable
price of a limited operation. What an outstanding device the geniuses at Rafael have
developed for us. One that “gives the government breathing space” while the
“nation is united” and “the home front displays restraint.”
Restraint? I’d like to see how Israelis would act and speak
if just once an F-16 squadron swooped down on a residential neighborhood and
dropped a ton of smart bombs on it. Unity? Not far from that stairwell, the
tenants of a luxury high-rise refused to let the residents of the nearby Givat
Amal neighborhood into their shelters when they knocked on their locked doors
with their children.
Only hatred still serves as glue. Many dozens of
Palestinians have already been killed and hundreds wounded in this limited,
compassionate and surgical operation. A complete city, the most densely
populated one in the world, is being pounded. After all, the editor of Israel
Today demanded “to return Gaza to
the Stone Age.” The casualty numbers will continue to rise. But Israelis
will continue to wallow in their exclusive misery and self-pity.
It doesn’t
appear in the technical specifications, but Iron Dome does not intercept only
missiles. Apparently it intercepts free thought as well. It dooms its users to
blindness, deafness and dementia. Has anyone asked himself how and why the
“present round of escalation” began? Who escalated it? Whom and what does it
serve? Why are rockets suddenly falling out of the sky?
To the government’s credit, it made it clear to its subjects
immediately after the youths were abducted that it was waging an all-out war
against Hamas and the Palestinian unity. Despite this, Israelis continue to
recite obediently, at the government’s behest, that the war was intended “to
bring the quiet back to the residents of the south.” That is a lie. You can’t
bring back something that doesn’t exist.
The residents of the south have been living under fire for
14 years. So have Gaza ’s
beleaguered residents. If our leaders really want them to have quiet, they must
strive courageously and creatively for an overall solution. They must install
above us all the iron dome of a negotiated political settlement. But apparently
it doesn’t pay to manufacture such an item.
