By the time you have finished reading this sentence, 15 seconds would have passed. In these fifteen seconds millions of Israeli citizens may have had to run for cover in their bomb shelters as they are pounded by rockets fired tirelessly at them from Gaza-based terrorists. This has been the story of their lives for the several years now.
It may have taken you a minute to read the above paragraph. This is how long I have to get to my shelter should a rocket fired from Gaza reaches my home in Modiin, in the centre of the country. We thought it could never happen here. Our hearts have broken a thousand times as rockets pound our fellow citizens. We have stood in solidarity. And we have heaved secret sighs of relief – thank goodness we are safe.
Until now.
Last week, Israel embarked on Operation Pillar of Defence in response to the incessant barrage of rockets. From the air and from the sea, our airforce and navy have taken out tunnels, terrorist rocket launchers, Hamas leadership and their allotted targets with pinpoint accuracy. If there have been mistakes, rest assured, inquiries are immediate. Unlike our adversary Hamas who commit a double war crime by firing at our civilian population from within the confines of their own. But don’t take my word for it – you can hear them boast about on numerous YouTube clips appearing on a social media platform near you!
Hamas have fired rockets that can strike deep into the heart of the country putting 45% of us under threat. Rockets have been fired at Tel Aviv for the first time since the Gulf War and at our nations capital, Jerusalem. Not only our eternal capital, Jerusalem is home to many Arab citizens and Christianity, Islam and Judaism’s holiest sites.
Nearly all of us are on alert at all times should we hear the alarm that signals an incoming rockets and tells us to scramble for safety. I have heard and felt the booms as they reach their targets. I can only imagine what those under constant attack must feel.
As I write this post, footage from a terror attack on a bus in Tel Aviv is streaming in on my computer and television. It has been years since we saw a terror attack of this nature strike at the heart of Israel’s commercial capital. Once again our telephones beep with messages from concerned family and friends and social media platforms are a-buzz with our posts to worried loved ones that we are okay.
Next month I will celebrate the second anniversary of my aliyah. Many have asked me if I regret my decision to make Aliyah. Hell no! This is my home and there is nowhere else I would rather be than right here in her time of need. Am I scared? A little. Am I angry? You betcha! I am fuming that Hamas use our citizens for target practice. I am fuming that the world sees our right to defend ourselves as “disproportionate” or worth less than a 5 second sound bite. Would they prefer we remove our shelters, Army and Iron Dome so we can rack up numbers of dead Israelis? This is not a zero sum game. I am angry at the cowards who stalk our citizens with terror by planting explosive devices on our buses. I am angry at Hamas who instead of using the exorbitant funding they receive to build a nation, prefer to advocate genocide on their neighbour. Educating your children to become martyrs and not ballerinas, doctors, teachers, nation builders is not resistance – it is child abuse!
I am angry that our children sing songs about what to do when they hear the siren. I am angry that they play games of “siren and rocket” and not plain hide and seek.
And while the rockets rain down and the sirens wail, I look at my fellow citizens and take pride in our resolve and resilience, our strength and our unity.
I may be shaken, stirred but I will not be deterred! Am Yisrael Chai!
Roro's Rantings 
Brilliantly put, Rolene. Sharing EVERYWHERE.
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Rolene, after I shake (not stir) my cocktail, I’ll drink a toast to you.Keep writing, please. Excellent and factual.
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This is exactly what I felt when the last time there was a terror attack in Delhi. Something within me died that day as the images of mutilated bodies of the victims streamed before my eyes. What scared me most was the fact that just half an hour before the attack took place me my nephew and my mom were planning to visit one of the markets where the bomb had been planted. It could have been us, my mom, my nephew and me. Something that very moment died within me. I was in the middle east being fed daily doses of images of seriously injured children, children with amputated limbs, children with tears in their eyes, children with no cries-eyes still. How could Israel do this to the children I would often scream in utter frustration. And then I would see stories about Katyusha rockets, the Hamas and I would scream the same words, I felt like dashing to Gaza and scream to both sides, STOP, STOP THIS MADNESS, STOP KILLING CHILDREN, FOR GOD’S SAKE. But then they kidnapped the BBC reporter Alan Johnson, the Hamas. I saw his father’s appeal and it moved my heart. I wanted him to be released, I prayed for his release so that he could be with his dad and mom, so that his old dad and mom do not have to go through the pain of losing their young son. How could an organization which claims to be the protector of people could kindap a journalist? I came back and forgot all about it until 26/11/2008 when terrorist from Pakistan struck the commercial capital of India, Mumbai, mercilessly killing 170 people and injuring 300 others. The brutal manner in which the Jewish couple were tortured and murdered and screams of joy in Palestine-and the face of that innocent little jewish kid who lost his parents. While in the Middle East I would often hear Mahmoud Ahmadenijad calling for annihilation of Israel. Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood all of them wanted the same. I hear radical Muslims denying holocaust, praising Hitler. I also saw them taking refuge under the same Hitler when confronted by others for their violent ways saying they are being treated worst than Jews under Nazi Germany. I heard Daisy Khan the New York mosque supporter complaining Muslims in America are being treated worst than the Jews under Hitler. I heard many radical Muslims using words like racism, apartheid, genocide and what have you. The international media relentlessly covering the Palestinians running on the streets with dead bodies of children and men, men who got killed as a result of Israeli response to rocket fire from Palestinian areas. I see Israeli willing to make peace and I see Hamas refusing it. I see Israel conceding to their demands and I see Hamas refusing to give up their policy of wiping Israel off the face of earth. Worst, I see videos where little children are dressed like martyrs with bombs and guns in their hands, I saw television programs where children are not taught nursery rhymes but rhymes of hatred against Israel and Jews, I saw Hamas propaganda videos showing that showed Israelis as evil monsters and those videos were made for children! I saw the silence of international media on issues of such grave nature as this. Then I compare the number of Muslims killed by Israel in the recent war with the number of Muslims killed by Muslims across the Islamic world-Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Egypt etc recently. The number of Muslims killed in the sectarian violence that erupted in post Saddam Iraq-the truck bombings targeting schools, colleges, market places-stabbing and shooting on the streets and homes. Do they care about children and women, their children and women? Saudi Arabia and Pakistan both gave legitimacy to Taliban in Afghanistan in 2005, which then imposed the extreme form of Sharia on its people. No international outrage was seen when Taliban started skinning alive the violators of Sharia rule, when Taliban openly started executing women they suspect of adultery, when Taliban started torturing children for playing with dolls and saying nursery rhymes-not single word of protest from anywhere. I ask myself again, do they really care about their children and women? Hamas’ anti Israel policy, Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel has brought misery and pain to civilians on both sides but Hamas refuses to acknowledge Israel as a state, continues with its policy of hatred towards Israel, its people and when I say people it includes women and children too. Are Israeli children are not children, are Israeli women not women, are Israeli people not humans? Forget about Israeli men, women and children-are Palestinian men, women and children are not humans, don’t they deserve a better life, don’t they deserve to live and live happily, don’t Palestinian kids deserve to have a normal childhood playing with toys instead of guns and bombs, growing up dreaming about becoming doctors or engineers than becoming terrorists and suicide bombers? Its been going on for decades and Hamas knows its policy of hatred and violence has gotten them nothing but more misery and pain to common Palestinians. I understand things simple-if I am the leader and I see my strategy causing more pain and misery to my people, my strategy causing deaths of young men, women and children I will say okay lets have peace, lets have something positive than death and blood on the streets. Why doesn’t Hamas think like that? Ever seen the images of Palestinians running with dead bodies chanting Allah Hu Akbar on your television screens broadcast by the international media across the world? The sympathy it generates AND the funds that pours in from around the world into the coffers of Hamas? Its a big business. Yes for Hamas it is a big business. And why Hamas alone, the radical Islamic leaders worldwide, the head of terrorist organizations worldwide they all are into it for power and money. The heads of terrorists organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaieda are all merchants of death. They are psychopaths who for their own personal greed sell death to people, death cloaked in hope to the masses whose suffering actually is a result of not nations like Israel but corrupt and greedy people like Islamil Haniyeh, Morsi, Bin Laden, Al Zawahri and Hafiz Saeed of Lashkar e Taiba. They sell death to powerless, jobless, money less and hopeless people, death cloaked in Hope. They sell them God-Jihad in the name of Allah, sex-72 virgins, Fame-martyrdom and a few crumbs to their families. They don’t care about people, they don’t care about women, children-neither of their enemies nor of their own. Imagine if Gaza issue gets resolved where will Hamas be, say, after a decade or so down the line? Who will give a damn to Hezbollah or Muslim Brotherhood? Nobody, so they want the conflict to continue, the more lives lost the better it would be, the more children die, the more donations they would get. An American makes a video and there are violent protests worldwide against America, radical Muslims blow up each other in dozens and hundreds not a single voice heard, why? Muslims killed hundreds of Muslims in Iraq no protest, nothing. But a hundred killed in Israeli response to terror attacks by Hamas whole of international media starts screaming blood, why? Where is the conscience of the international media when they behead women, when they torture children, when they blow up schools and hospitals? Why had international not taken Hamas to task for its policy of annihilating Israel and Jews, why has it not take Mahmoud Ahmadenijad to task for threatening to wipe Israel from the face of earth. One question to all individual journalists and sympathizers of Hamas and Palestinians, what would you do if your neighbor threatens to burn your house, your people including women and children? What would you do if he dashes towards you with a can of gasoline with an intention to burn your people alive? Watch? Call police? Or Defend your women, children and men on your own?
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Why do the Jews of Israel give truckloads of food, medicines, clothing, water and electricity to their implacable Muslim Arab enemies and Hamas in that heavily armed terrorist base which is Gaza and to their implacable Muslim Arab enemies and Fatah in Samaria and Judea? It is like a compassionate medical doctor who is attempting to heal a very ill patient who is stabbing him with a long knife! Where is the sense in this madness?!? The Muslims need all the food, medicines, clothing, water and electricity just like everybody else but, make no mistake, they also want the Holy Land of Israel, Samaria and Judea – every single square centimetre of it even if it means exterminating every single Israeli Jew in order to attain their objectives..! Sadly, Islam will never ever compromise with Judaism and Zionism! To believe that lasting peace through territorial compromise will materialise in the Levant of the volatile Middle East and North Africa between the embattled Jewish State of Israel and the Muslim Arab Empire is sheer fantasy and folly based upon dreams and wishful-thinking!
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