Three rockets, a protest, and a funeral

A day in Tel Aviv.

I spent much of the past 24 hours in Tel Aviv, and the collection of sights and sounds can make my head spin. Events big and small coalesce as part of one strange mush of extreme emotions turned everyday life. Calling it “surreal” doesn’t even capture the assault on one’s preconceived idea of what life is meant to be.

It’s a lot to take in. And you may be forgiven for not following all the crazy-making events here because, even though it is eye-popping stuff, it is also non-stop. To wit, while the Hague is looking to arrest our Prime Minister for war crimes — and he pretends it doesn’t matter by trying to blame this all-time-diplomatic low on the world instead of on himself — so many other things are also going on. The north is burning up, the army is hanging on by a thread, the government is openly lying (again), and more. My Whatsapp groups relating to the war has so many events, protests, sign-hanging gatherings all the time — ALL THE TIME — that I am having a hard time remembering where I was planning on going…. And then there are many little tidbits that normally should be news — like the PM’s son getting in trouble with the FBI, or Hebron being relabeled as “The Galilee” — all of which is both important and also possibly a deflection.

Which is why I’m writing this little round-up. Let's see if I can sum up the events of the last day, plus some.

Screaming mothers.

Groups of mothers led tens of thousands of protesters in Tel Aviv last night. Mothers of hostages. Mothers of soldiers. Mothers of the dead. Standing in front of the army base across from the Azrieli mall, on one side Times-square-like ads with smiling celebrities selling us clothes or wifi, and on the other side masses of protest signs with faces of hostages. The contrast is surreal. (Actually, the entire highway is like that — massive signs reading “Bring them home NOW” next to “Get this great cellphone deal TODAY.”)

Mothers with signs and t-shirts that read, “Parents of soldiers screaming ENOUGH!”, the name of their group.

The mothers leading this protest are screaming about the need for a deal right now. NOW! NOW! NOW! Protesters have been screaming NOW for seven months, but last night you can see that the mothers have actually taken over…..Mothers called for a deal to bring the hostages home, to get the soldiers out of Gaza, and to end the war so that we can all get to the work of rebuilding and healing, whatever is left of this country and this nation. And also to get rid of this catastrophic government. Catastrophic. For a long time, the groups calling for a hostage deal were trying to be “apolitical” and stay away from calls for Bibi to go home. Some groups are still trying to stick to that stance. But it’s not really working anymore. The protests calling for elections started an hour before the hostage protest, and then marched to the kirya where they merged. It feels like one big fight at this point. And as I wrote about last week, the mothers are taking over, and the gloves are coming off. There’s no more time. And everyone knows that it’s all connected. This government has blood on its hands and they have to go. Whether that will be before or after we get the hostages back is anyone’s guess.   

Rockets in Tel Aviv.

This afternoon, Hamas shot rockets to the center of Israel, including Tel Aviv.  In case anyone thought that we have accomplished anything at all in eight months of non-stop bombardment. Nothing. The idea of “beating Hamas” — there’s no such thing. In fact, a poll that came out a few days ago found that the overwhelming majority of Israelis feel that Hamas won this war already.

Funeral procession.

Just a few hours after the rockets, a march through Tel Aviv marked the funeral of hostage Hanan Yablonka whose body was returned last week. His mother spoke to the crowd at last night’s protest asking us all to join her in this journey. She said, “I’m not even talking to them”, meaning the government, “because it’s not worth the energy.” The families seem to have given up on the government entirely.

Hostage Hanan Yablonka’s mother speaking at his funeral today in Tel Aviv.

Dead dogs. And people.

Several soldiers were killed last week in an operation looking for tunnels. Apparently, the soldiers were supposed to send dogs first to check for booby traps. But — trigger warning, not for the faint of heart or for dog-lovers — the army is running out of dogs. apparently 39 specially training k-9 army dogs have been killed this way in the war. And it takes 4 months to train new dogs…..This whole situation is bad for dogs and bad for people… As I said, this is not a conversation easy on dog-lovers. Meanwhile parents of soldiers are losing their shit over this story. Because the use of dogs, as cruel as it is, is still better for parents of soldiers than what is happening now, when they are not using dogs…. Another reason we need a ceasefire now.  

The north is on fire.

While all this is happening, hundreds of rockets are being fired by Hizbullah to the north every day. Thousands of families have been evacuated, hundreds of homes have been completely destroyed. As my friend Laura who lives up there and who has constant planes overhead shared: “What you know as Israel’s north is gone. We have lost ground. As of now, the northern border is the Kineret, more or less. We didn’t lose this much ground even in the Yom Kippur war.“ This story barely gets into the news. It’s like ,there is no more room in the news cycle. You listen to the radio, interrupted every so often by “Sirens in Kiryat Arba. Everyone into shelters” – as if there is anyone left there to go into shelters – and then the radio continues. It’s like, where do we carry all of this news? What are we supposed to do with this information, except invite our friends like Laura to come for an extended stay….

Our soldiers are on the brink. So… get more?

While the IDF brass complains that there are not enough soldiers, reports from the many groups of parents of soldiers are that the guys who have been in there since October are emotionally and physically exhausted. The army is short-staffed, and is not anywhere near able to cope with what it needs up north. Some people are responding to this by calling for haredim to join the draft. Gantz’s right-hand man MK Chili Tropper spent today pushing a bill insisting on haredi recruitment. I understand the feeling of “unfairness” from the “uneven burdens”. I do. But really, is that the answer to all this? More war? More soldier? More fighting? Don’t you all think we should be trying to end the bloodshed instead of creating more of it? It feels like misplaced energy to me.

I can think of at least half a dozen other things that Gantz and his team can and should be doing right now. Like, say, bringing down the government. That would be top of my list. (Hmmm, maybe that’s what they are doing by pushing haredi draft? Hmmm, maybe there is more to this than meets the eye… A girl can dream. )

Bibi knew that Oct 7 was going to happen. He didn’t care.

The Israeli media reported that Netanyahu had many warnings about Oct 7 for months and ignored them all. We knew much of this already — there were Egyptian warning, the tatzpi warnings, Liberman’s warnings, Secret Service warnings, Yair Lapid’s warning just a week before Oct 7 — but now we have more details. Apparently the Prime Minister was told repeatedly over the course of 6-8 months that Hamas viewed his forceful attempts to shove “judicial reform” (aka the destruction of democracy) down our throats as an opening for October 7 because it weakened the nation. He could have reacted by putting aside his plans. He could have put the security of the country first, and realized that the judicial reform stuff was literally making Hamas salivate. He could have done that. But he didn’t.

So next time you hear someone telling you that the lack of “unity” is what brought on Oct 7 and that if only Israelis would have stopped protesting so much, remind them of this. It was Netanyahu who created that lack of “unity”, and that he was warned many times of the deadly impacts of his actions, and that it was 100% in his hands to bring “unity” and he could have done that and possibly saved all of us by not being such a self-serving, narcissistic asshole. He didn’t choose that path. Instead, his insistence on forcing actions that would both destroy democracy and bring a million Israelis to the streets is what weakened Israel and created the context for the deadly Oct 7 attack. It’s on him. It was NOT the protests but Netanyahu’s unwillingness to hear the people. This is on Netanyahu. Period. As journalist Ben Caspit reported, a senior IDF general said, “If the people knew how much Netanyahu ignored the warnings and put his political agenda ahead of the wellbeing of the country, there would be an earthquake here.”

No hostage talks.

Meanwhile, Bibi is still insisting that there will be no cease fire. It’s insane…. There aren’t even any talks happening how. Rumors are that they may resume next week, but then Bibi is like, NO NO, we won’t go into talks if they are telling us to stop the war. Never! We will never agree to stop fighting. That is LITERALLY what Bibi keeps saying. So the world is telling Israel to stop the fighting in Gaza. The soldiers are done. The parents are done. And a cease fire is the only way to get the hostages home. And yet Bibi Netanyahu is still pushing ahead. To nowhere. To nothing. To the abyss.

Netanyahu Junior gets into some trouble.

Here is a doozy for your general entertainment-slash-terror: Netanyahu’s son, Yair, who has been spending this war in a hotel  in Florida on the taxpayer’s dime and apparently posting on X more than trump himself, posted a rant by a guy dressed as an IDF soldier calling for reservists to refuse command if there is a cease fire and to take over all of Gaza on their own.

The guy, who turns out isn’t even a soldier and was using a “borrowed” gun and uniform, and the IDF is apparently investigating for going against “IDF ethics”. But he also called for the killing of all Palestinians in Gaza — “Not one will remain alive”, he says with army-esque music playing in the background, like an old Bruce Willis movie. Perhaps he didn’t realize that it is a federal offense in the United States to call for that kind of wanton killing, and Yair could be in some trouble for this withe the FBI. That would be fun! Anyway, the post has been taken down, but not before it was widely shared and caused a bit of a stir.  Do we care if Bibi the Second is a blood-thirsty  racist and draft evader? I don’t know. I can’t decide. Do you?

Miri Regev also gets into trouble.

Here’s ANOTHER doozy: Channel 13 ran an investigative series on longtime Netanyahu loyalist Miri Regev about years of corruption. She has lists of mayors and Likud supporters who can bring votes. Those on her special “lists”  receive roads, intersections, traffic lights, and other “favors”, even when they are out of her jurisdiction – even if, for example, it is the municipality rather than Ministry of Transportation that is supposed to pay for such things. People not on her list of loyalists receive no services, not even responses to letters, even when the professionals in the ministry feel differently. For example, if one of her “voters” calls her up and says, “My car is in the shop and they want 2000 NIS to fix it. Can you help me?” she says to her assistant, “Fix this.” Like that. Also, apparently there are more people who voted for her than who are registered in the Likud party, or some strange math like that. It is all well documented. SOOO….. Tens of thousands of people have signed petitions calling for her to resign. But she won’t. Why would she? There is no effective mechanism for removing corruption from office. As we know…. If Bibi is still in power after all this time, she has a clear roadmap to follow. (And I’m not going to get into how upsetting it is for me that one of the, like, THREE women in all of the Likud party is also, like, one of the worst people on the planet. They all are. All the women in this govt are shitty human beings, each in her own unique way. So that is just another thing that we have to grapple with. I’ll get to it, one day.)

Ben Gvir’s party rewrites maps.

Speaking of corruption, you’ll love this one: Opposition leader Yair Lapid discovered this Orwellian tidbit in which this government voted last week that Kiryat Arba is in the Negev and Hebron is in the Galilee. This is in a bill introduced by Otzma Yehudit (Ben Gvir) MK Limor Son Har Melech (another rare woman in the government who spends her time spewing racist rants about murdering Arabs and other pleasantries), a bill that adds Hebron and Kiryat Arba to the Negev and Galilee so that the Jews of these settlements (Jews only) can get budgets that are intended for the vulnerable geographic periphery of Israel. Funds meant for Sderot that was bombarded on Oct 7 will go to the settlements.   

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I think that’s it for the time being, though I’m sure there’s more.

And I didn’t even get to the news from the other side of the Atlantic. That the Republican-led House is planning on bringing Netanyahu to speak. Have they not been paying attention to any of this? And of course Trump-VP-hopeful Elise Stefanik was here last week being feted by Bibi-ists. The Trump-Bibi alliance is being bolstered on all sides, and we should all be deathly afraid of this.

 Is that enough news for now?

Some would call this the new normal. Certainly our government wants us to treat this is a new  “normal”. You know, you go to work, you pass by protesters, lah-de-dah, you go shopping, have coffee with friends, maybe put on a yellow ribbon to show you care, pass some more protest signs on your way home, whatever, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed, you know. We are being nudged by our so-caled leaders to accept this rather than expect something to change. Being almost hypnotized into submission. It’s all crazy-making.

But I’m not doing it. I’m not letting all this pass. NOT NORMAL.

#BRINGTHEMHOMENOW
#CEASEFIRENOW 

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