Sderot

Sderot is a small city in southern Israel on the border with the Gaza strip. In fact it is so near Gaza that barely a mile from the city, down a small track known as the city's Lover's Lane, you can see the strip of uninhabited land providing a border region between the conflict area. And beyond that border, razed to the ground, where Israeli settlements providing 2% of Europe's produce once resided, there is the Gaza Strip so often on the news, a shimmering mirage of buildings and haze.

It didn't seem real to me, standing on this bluff looking out overlooking the valley aware that snipers from Gaza could strike, or a Qassam rocket could be launched towards Sderot at any moment. For Sderot has endured eight years of such attacks sometimes as few as one every few days, sometimes as many as seventy per day and it was for this and other reasons that Israel entered Gaza this past year in Operation Cast Lead and has been so condemned in the Goldstone report.

Back in the city we hear the stories of families who have endured an almost never ceasing bombardment, see the playgrounds with their bomb shelters painted to appear as festive caterpillars, and the schools blanketed in their low, hulking protective structures; we speak with a family who live on a street in which every house has been struck by Qassam rockets and they tell us how during the graduation party of their eldest son the Tzevah Adom, Color Red, alarm sounded forcing them to flee to their bomb shelter, 26 people in a space barely 3 by 5 feet holding babies above their heads in desperation to fit.

It is unbelievable in such a modern country such attacks are tolerated for 8 years and more. Because Israel is a democracy, a modern western democracy, we hold it to higher standards than those of the countries around it. Would we in America tolerate years of rocket fire, admittedly from a repressed people who are kept as refugees by the surrounding Arabic countries for the sake of political capital, without reacting, without taking revenge or justice? When 9/11 occurred did we not embark on two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on the pretense or revenge? Why than is Israel not permitted this largess? I do not mean nor do I believe that Israel's actions against its Arab, Palestinian population are righteous, nor do I mean that the terrorist attacks from this refugee population should be tolerated with equanimity I merely wish to pose the question of why these two nations, or one Israeli nation and one Palestinian proto-nation, are not held to the same moral standards? This question is particularly trying in the wake of the Goldstone report which condemns actions taken by both sides during the latest operation in Gaza but only the charges against Israel have been moved up towards the Security Council, and if America did not posses a veto could result in charges of War Crimes.

When I left Sderot I did so with a new knowledge of Israel and its conflicts as well as an orange band, popularized by the Live Strong Campaign, which read "I support Sderot" but in truth the bracelet I need should say "I support humanity."