Sitting in the Best Café in Karmiel…

Actually it is also the only café still open in Karmiel. The town is not quite a ghost town, but a sizable percentage of the population has left for towns to the south. Some are staying with friends or family in Tel Aviv or Ashkelon. Others have rented hotel rooms in Eilat, the resort town at the southernmost tip of the country. Those who leave all say the same thing…. They are afraid… They are afraid of the sirens announcing incoming Katyusha rockets… They are afraid of the booms of rockets falling nearby… They are afraid that the cosmic reverse slot machine will come up with there own personal 7-7-7…

Those that stay are fatalistic… "What is to be done?"… "If my time is up, then what does it matter where I am…?"

Amy, the owner of Café-Bar, tells me as she serves me an unbelievably delicious fudge chocolate cake, that her daughter has left today with her baby to France. "She has a little baby… Of course she must take her from this."

This morning as she worked at her shop, three Katyushot fell harmlessly into a field less than a kilometer from the shop. Was she frightened? "Not really… I could be at home or here… what does it matter? Actually, it is safer here. There is a safe room right over there in the corner and the building is safer."

I feel some of the same fatalism… My daughter Lisa is upset that I decided to stay up here, even for a day. But I needed to come to Karmiel. Why? Many reasons, I suppose. I could say it was to get away from the heat and humidity, noise and air of Tel Aviv. But the truth is that I wanted to be closer to the front. I felt guilty sitting in a safe apartment in Tel Aviv while the terrorists were making lives miserable for my people in the north. I wanted to help… ideally doing something of high value, such as delivering food and supplies to families trapped in their shelters. But even if I cannot figure out how to make that happen, I can at least be present… I can lend moral support to those that have chosen to stay here, despite the monsters to the north. I can spend a few dollars in a coffee shop and tell the owner with my patronage that I care…

Israel is an amazing country and the Israelis are an amazing people… but they are tired of constant threat. They see their cousins living in the US and wonder when they can live more comfortable lives. When can they drive nice cars and go out in the evening without fear…?

When can they be assured that, unlike their parents and grandparents, their children will not be forced to fight on a constant basis for their national and individual lives?

In this as in all things Israeli, there are multiple opinions. The eternal optimists hope that this is the beginning of the end of the eternal conflict. The world will now see the moral bankruptcy of the anti-Israel leadership in the Arab/Muslim world and will put pressure "on all sides" to achieve a lasting peace. The other side shakes their heads and says, "Sure… just like Oslo… Just like when we withdrew from Lebanon… Just like the disengagement…"