To anyone concerned with the situation

To anyone concerned about the current crisis here in Israel,

I want to give anyone who’s concerned a brief and personal update which unfortunately isn’t too optimistic:

The situation here is bad and it’s going to get worse. We’re not only facing the Hamas who, as I write this, are launching hundreds of rockets into Israel, but also this civil war and rioting going on in towns and cities around the country – it’s not only an uprising of the Arab communities but also the extreme right wing Jews – most of whom belong to a fascist organisation known as ‘la famiglia’ –  literally wandering the streets vandalising and looking for Arabs to attack. Many people in Israel have used the word ‘anarchy’ to describe what is going on.

In Haifa – the city in which I have lived for the last 40 years, we’re not directly in the firing line of the rockets from the South, but the situation is really disturbing and, unbelievably, we’re literally scared to go out of the house. There are videos being posted everywhere showing what took place in the early hours of this morning in downtown Haifa. Lod, Acre, Bat Yam, Jerusalem and other cities across Israel by groups of Arabs and Jews (mainly young men) – random and inexcusable violence and vandalism in between air raid sirens screeching and continuous explosions (mainly and luckily from the ‘Iron Dome’ defence system).

The question on everyone’s lips is – “where are the authorities, the police, the leaders…?” – well from my point of view, and other like-minded desperately frustrated and angry citizens, we are in a hopelessly atrocious position, together feeling abandoned and neglected – we are led by a caretaker and ‘impotent’ PM leading a lackluster, incapacitated, dysfunctional and scandalous caretaker government. The doors have been flung wide open and our society suddenly appears totally vulnerable, exposed and susceptible to fearmongers, facing the abyss alone. Unfortunately, the near future for this country seems bleak.

I am by nature a positive character, always trying to find the best from the worst scenarios and constantly on the search for the ‘pot at the end of the rainbow’ but the last few days have shaken my steadfastness in the belief that ‘everything will be fine’ because I can’t see it anymore. I know in my heart of hearts and – to be honest – my painfully realistic perception of life, that this is not the end of anything. However, we all have undergone a type of rebirth or reawakening over the last year and a half and ‘things’ have changed – everything will not go back to ‘the way we were’ in pre-Covid days and, in the same vein, this contemporary page of history cannot, and must not, simply be turned  – events of these days should mark this period off as ‘a black time in history’ not to be brushed off with meaningless platitudes and endless justifications.

It has been written and said by so many, far more illustrious than myself throughout time, that ‘Human Nature’ has a really dark aspect and it is in times like these that I do believe that evil for evil’s sake does exist.

As a rational Human being I will continue to be optimistic and not try and change that which can never be changed, but in my own circle of existence I hope I can still shine a small light of sanity and hope for anyone who wishes to see it.