view from central park: tehilla r. goldberg

‘Maybe’ fades to black: ‘The knife is our choice’

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I concluded my last column by weakly writing “Maybe.” I wanted to believe that maybe there was still hope for a positive new year, maybe the savage surge in terrorism on the streets of Israel that was so devastatingly painful would also be brief.

Maybe.

Unfortunately, the tension and barbaric attacks on innocent civilians has proven my hopes to be nothing more than fantasy.

I also wrote that I could barely keep up with the sequence of the attacks. Since then … Armon Hanatsiv, Ra’anana, Petach Tikva, Kiryat Gat, Geula … I sit shaking, scared about the next attack.

I feel manic going from pictures and videos of terror and bloody death to my brave people of Am Yisrael who, for example, intentionally went to the Machaneh Yehuda market to grab a falafel, intentionally chose to walk around the deserted, wounded but still golden city of Jerusalem, just to encourage the security personnel by distributing warm cakes, and to insure that someone was out walking in Jerusalem. My brave people of Am Yisrael … the group of Israelis standing around the central Jerusalem bus station who experienced the trauma of a terrorist stabbing attack and the bloody neutralization — spontaneously, collectively, bursting into a strong rendition of “Hatikva.”

A high school classmate who recently made aliyah had this to share:

“It would never have occurred to me a year ago, in the waning days of our war, that I would EVER, EVER find the sounds of the air raid sirens COMFORTING. Because you can DO something — you can take cover and get yourself and your loved ones to a safe place. Now? The sirens are after the fact, after the evil has struck, after someone’s loved one didn’t have the time to notice or seek cover. There is no safe place.”

Some look at the Palestinians’ plight and try to justify their murderous behavior — “it’s the occupation” or “it’s the economic situation” and so on.

Regardless of what one feels about the political situation, how can one morally justify savage behavior — choosing to slit a human being until he or she hemorrhages to death?

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