A tranquil calm in the North, war in the South

August 21, 2011 - 6:47 PM by David

Wading in the Zaki River in the Golan while rockets rain down on the South.

It wouldn’t be summer without a military skirmish in Israel. And this one looks like it could blossom into a doozy.

Funny thing is, that while one part of the country is under siege with rockets raining down, and buses being shot up, other areas are full of tranquility. We had just started a four-day vacation in the North on Thursday, just east of the Kinneret in a beautiful bed & breakfast chalet inside a Golan moshav. Late in the afternoon, we got a call from a friend just checking if our daughter (serving in the IDF along the Egyptian border) was alright.

A little perplexed, I thanked the friend for his concern, then asked why he was interested. He then explained about the terror attacks near Eilat, which we were oblivious to. We quickly got off the call and tried to contact our daughter, but only got her voice mail.

Nothing to get alarmed about, we said, she’s usually on exercises in areas that don’t get cell phone reception. Meanwhile, we tuned into the news on the radio, detailing the awful events of Thursday, getting brought up to date during a time we were supposed to be getting away from it all.

A couple hours later, soldier daughter called to say she was fine, nowhere’s near the violence and leading her recruits in various exercises. We spent the next few days – while the rockets were landing on Beersheva, and other southern points, rafting in the Jordan River, take a jeep trip through the trails and rivers of the Golan and chilling at the amazing pool of Moshav Ramot, with a breathtaking view of the Kinneret and surrounding mountains.

Unless you deliberately tuned into the news, you wouldn’t have known that people were losing their lives a couple hundred kilometers away. That’s Israel for you.

I’m not sure how what’s unfolding down south is being portrayed in the world media ( likely something like “Both Israel and Palestinian actions are escalating the situation along the Israeli borders with Gaza and Egypt”), but anyone with half a mind should and does realize that there’s no equivalency here – moral or otherwise.

Terrorists started this thing all by themselves with no provocation (other than Israel’s existence) and Israel is only doing what any sovereign country would do to protect its citizens. But for some reason, we always end up sharing half – if not more – of the blame for the violence. Returning from the Golan to the reality of another war-filled August in Israel, it was a stark wake up call that the vacation was over.

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