Hamas War

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Word Association: Violent Riots-Ehud Barak


Escaping riots and my mind suddently went back a few years, to the horrors of the "reign of terror" when Ehud Barak was Prime Minister of Israel.
Ehud Barak was definitely the worst Prime Minister we ever had. Personal safety in a good portion of the country was in the minus category. Arab terror attacks were daily, and all Barak did was to threaten. It is beyond my comprehension how/why the Israeli Labor Party could have reelected him as party leader. Their "reserve of potential leaders" must be totally bankrupt.
As I write this, all I can think of is that most Labor supporters must be from parts of the country which weren't under attack, and they're too short-sighted and selfish to look at what's happening beyond their own neighborhoods.
My neighborhood and my "stamping grounds" were definitely under attack. My youngest, just a young teenageer at the time, was in a bus going to volunteer in the nearby fire station, when a bullet passed his neck, close enough to "burn." Arab terrorists were terrorizing the roads of YESHA.
At first we tried to keep up routines, business as usual. The Beit El Yeshiva High School, where I taught, is close enough to the road between Jelazoon Refugee Camp and Ramallah-El Bira, so that it was easily targetted by the Arab terrorists. We had to flee the classrooms facing the road when Arab terrorists shot at us. Bullet-proof windows had to be installed.
The diningroom, even closer to the road, was out of bounds and tables and chairs had to be set up in the lobby for meals.
One day, when my teaching was interrupted by shooting at the classroom, lessons were cancelled and my then boss and still neighbor decided that we had better go home. He figured that if we didn't leave soon, before dark, we may end up stuck in Beit El for a few days.
The big problem was that the army wasn't allowing Jews on the road we usually took. So we went a different way, through an Arab village, which my neighbor knew well from army service. Arabs lined the streets watching us, and it was a miracle that they watched and didn't attack, because we were all alone. I don't know if he had a gun. If they had stormed the car, we would have been killed.
Baruch Hashem we arrived home safely.
(blogger's spellcheck is off, again, so please let me know if I've missed any typos)

6 comments:

Maya / מיה said...

Wow... once again your post brings home to me realities that I don't feel in, as you say, a part of the country not under attack. I don't know much about Barak as PM-- I've always heard that Golda Meir was one of the worst for almost allowing the country to be destroyed in the Yom Kippur War. On the other hand, is it actually less horrible to be destroyed from within?

Batya said...

Maya, I've been here a long time.

Golda was fighting cancer during those years. In a sense the mistake which led to our being attacked Yom Kippur 1973 was very much the same as the today's Left's dependence on wishful thinking rather than looking at unpleasant facts.
I'm a pragmatist.

Hadassa DeYoung said...

Shalom!
Arabs are afraid of crazy people. There are limits to this fear, but it is worthwhile to know this.
Hadassa

Batya said...

So, Hadassa, do you think the fact that we brazenly drove through the village frightened them? It makes sense. We were very alone.

Hadassa DeYoung said...

Shalom!
Yes. But as I wrote before, there is a limit to their fear and one should not rely on miracles.
Shabbat Shalom!
Hadassa

Batya said...

Amen! Shabbat Shalom