The first Endgame post included the following:

Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian PM, has established a two year plan for creating the infrastructure of a Palestinian state. This has been described by the Palestinians as a proactive measure intended to lay the groundwork for peace. However, they have also made it clear that if no “peace” is forthcoming, then they will take their preparations and declare a state unilaterally. While it’s doubtful they would do so, the point of the exercise is to be ready and to function like a proper government in the view of the world’s western nations. It is also, of course to place pressure on Israel because Israel would end up losing a great deal of negotiating leverage if the world accepts a new Palestinian state. Also, becoming a high contracting party gives the Palestinians some advantages they do not currently enjoy on the diplomatic and other fronts.

In the comments, I added:

…the benefits will be of unilateral statehood by the Palestinians…

Part of the strategy, in my opinion, is to scare Israel into believing the Palestinians will actually unilaterally declare statehood. The way they will do it in order to get approval and recognition by other states is to couch their language carefully so it appears they agree to 1967 borders including Jerusalem, but the weak language will permit the Palestinian entity to actually pursue statehood encompassing all of Israel.

The benefits of statehood are many. Right now, on many international conventions, the Palestinians have no status because they’re not a “high contracting party,” i.e. a state. The minute they become a state with status among all nations, they can make many demands that they are precluded from making right now. Just as one example, consider that they had to ask the UNHRC to deal with the Goldstone Report by having other countries do their bidding. As a state, they could have taken diplomatic steps directly and on their own. The Hague and UNESCO conventions also deal with high contracting parties differently than with non-state actors.

and:

It’s a win-win strategy. If you threaten a state with all the implications, it may get the Israelis to give up more. If they don’t fall for it and you actually declare a state, you couch your language in a way that keeps claim over all of Israel (since negotiations were never completed) and you benefit from all the benefits attendant to high contracting parties.

and:

How do the Palestinians view the two states? What the stats I quoted [from a poll mentioned in the comments] show is that [they believe] the state we’ll call Palestine will have absolutely no Jews in it, since 98% of Palestinians believe it is essential that all the settlers should leave the occupied territories/West Bank. The question doesn’t state whether this includes east Jerusalem, but I suspect that for many of them it does.

The other state they would allow…will be called Israel. [For them] it will be composed of Jewish Israelis, non-Jewish Israelis of whom most are Arabs, and… all those Palestinian “refugees” (by which they mean all Palestinians) that also move into Israel. We know that they view this as part of the second state because a full 87% of Palestinians state it is essential that refugees be given the right to move into Israel AND receive compensation. A full 48% consider any alternative as unacceptable and 75% are in the “unacceptable” column regarding any sort of limitation on the numbers of refugees.

And

When you know what you are up against, you change tactics. The idea is that we’ve entered a period where the Palestinians intend to use means other than suicide bombs to achieve their goals, and what I’m reading from their behavior is supreme confidence about the outcome of their various campaigns around the globe.

Of course, Israel did not change tactics.

In the second endgame post, I expanded on the thesis and spoke of the numerous Palestinian bluffs. Among other things I referred to my bluff #2, the declaration of a Palestinian state. Two of the things said about that were:

#2 may happen, but everybody must know that there is absolutely no way that Israel would ever again leave the Western Wall or the Temple Mount. Since the trial balloon floated here provides the Palestinians with everything the Jordanians and Egyptians held in 1949, including the Temple Mount and the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, there is no way Israel would ever permit this to happen. In other words, the world would be signing off on an interminable war. I doubt that any serious thinking western diplomat would ever let their governments go that route.

and

I was asked why Fayyad would propose a state…My response was that it’s a win-win threat to make. It scares the Israelis and may get them to make additional concessions to avoid this outcome, and if it doesn’t scare the Israelis and somehow a Palestinian state comes into being, the manner of its coming into being will ensure that they can proceed to demand the rest of Israel. The process of seeking to make Israel into part of Palestine continues in one way or another.

and in the comments I predicted:

Obama’s administration will not buy it and will not give in to this trial balloon. Clinton – the former President Clinton – was there in person when the Israelis offered his plan to the Palestinians and were refused. He knows what is on the line here and there is no way that a White House with a Clinton in it, even if not in the Oval Office, will think for a minute that this is a line that can be crossed with Israel.

There is no way that a President with Rahm as an adviser could be ignorant about the implications of modifying 242 or giving the Palestinians unilateral reign over the Jewish Quarter and the Temple Mount.

I closed my comments by predicting that:

My prediction is that all these bluffs will play well in the US and poorly in Israel. They [Palestinians] will probably get further concessions out of the Americans…and therefore from the Israelis.

It’s all one big game, however, and that’s the long term prediction here: they will keep things just at a simmer (turning up the heat when needed as they’re doing now) for as long as possible.

In the third Endgame post I wrote:

If they end up having to somehow actually go through with a declaration of statehood, then if they do have the blessing of the UN Security Council and especially if they modify UNSCR 242 and 338, then according to international law, east Jerusalem would become East Jerusalem and the official Palestinian capital. However…if this were to happen, the Palestinians would build in some mechanism that allows them to continue to seek the remainder of the land between the River to the Sea. In other words, it’s just another stop-gap in their master plan.

And I quoted from Salam Fayyad’s two year statehood plan to make my point:

Though the issue of refugees will be addressed in the final status negotiations, it is certain that no political settlement can be accepted by Palestinians without a just and agreed solution to this fundamental issue in accordance with international resolutions, including UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

The refugee issue will remain under the jurisdiction of the PLO, through its Department of Refugees’ Affairs. The Government affirms its full commitment to all PLO decisions in relation to this issue. Within limits of its jurisdiction, without derogation of PLO’s responsibility…

And I translated this:

Translation:
We are never going to accept any conclusion to the conflict without acquiring a right for all Palestinians to move into Israel. In order to avoid this appearing to be messy or part of our aggression as a newly formed government, we’re going to remove this issue from our government.

The conclusion was simple:

Thirty two government agencies are going to function in the new, never-before seen state of Palestine, but the refugee problem is handed off to the PLO. Why would they do that if they thought the achievement of statehood would be sufficient? They wouldn’t. The PLO is going to be the address for those things that a “state” couldn’t and wouldn’t do. Any fighting that takes place, any attacks, any language that is deemed too aggressive will be blamed on the PLO, and of course “refugee rights,” not the new state of Palestine.

They also are demanding that UNGA resolution 194, the so-called “right of return” resolution which the Arabs rejected when it was first presented 60 years ago, become the governing rule for the Palestinian refugees. UNGAR 194 is a Trojan Horse, code for the desire to recreate demographics so that Israel could stop being a Jewish state. It is a desire to return not to 1967/1949 lines, but a desire to return to 1920 lines.

Have you guys been watching the latest flags in photos coming out of the PA? Take a look at the logo they created for this UN state campaign – you can see they put “194″ right next to “Palestine:”

UN General Assembly Resolution 194 goes back to 1949 and has language about the return of refugees to their homes. The Arabs rejected it, but these days this resolution is their best friend because they claim it is the foundation of their claim for a “right of return.” We won’t get into whether they have a case (they don’t) but more important is the implication here. The Palestinians are asking for a state called Palestine in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem, and as part of that state, they expect to have UNGAR 194 also come into being. So the new Palestine is not the endgame, it is merely a tactic within the endgame.

We are watching grand theater here; it’s very sophisticated diplomacy by the Palestinians. There’s a reason they keep photographing Abbas smiling, he has led his army to a battlefield victory. What he has done is successfully delay and dodge negotiations for as long as Obama has been in power. He succeeded in having Obama impose a precedent of stoppage of all settlement construction with eastern Jerusalem as part of that equation. He drove a wedge between the White House and Israel’s Prime Minister’s office. He has kept everybody off-balance by having different government officials make conflicting public statements about the Palestinian agenda. And then, just when it became clear that Obama was showing fatigue and was busy fighting Republicans and the economic malaise in the USA, Abbas moved forward with the UN statehood bid.

The anticipated benefits of the bid include the possible weakening or disengagement of the US from its hand-holding of the peace process and from Israel; providing a stronger role and influence to the Europeans, who tend to have populations and governments sympathetic to the Palestinians; winning all sorts of advantages in negotiations as others offer concessions to stop the statehood bid; the possibility of getting a state without making any concessions at all AND also generating a stronger diplomatic presence to pursue the refugee “return” issue (194) to the forefront.

Obama, must have been quite angry with Abbas. After all the support he gave the Palestinians and the pressure and demands he had placed on Israel, Abbas was now maneuvering with the Palestinians’ best self-interests even if it meant harming the US at the UN and internationally. Frantically trying to save Obama’s lousy Middle-East policy, one can only imagine all the concessions the Americans forced Israel to accept this week to try to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. And still the Palestinians said no. Why no? Because they know they are weakening the US greatly and putting a real wedge between Israel and the US while also creating a serious problem for the US as it seeks to maintain its Arab allies and friends. Whatever happens now, state or no state, the Palestinians pocket the advances made and use them as a baseline for any future talks.

Oh, and all this talk about how they’ll be made to pay a price for this action? They know it’s meaningless. They will simply threaten everyone that they’ll have to disintegrate their government or the PA or else…The money will be sent immediately.

They are winning this one by a landslide. It turns out that between Arafat and Abbas, Abbas is the shrewder one.

As for the speeches at the UN, I have to say that Netanyahu surprised with his effective speech, Abbas did not surprise with his speech riddled with falsehoods and Obama appears to have finally awakened to the little snow-job Abbas pulled on him and finally understands why Israel needs to have some real security.

Make no mistake, though, this is a huge victory for the Palestinians – an avoidable one, which Israel handled very poorly (there were many ways to handle this – I suggested an extreme one in this post and also in this post – and it’s going to be hard for Israel and even the US to regain leverage in talks in the future. Or worse, there will be an unofficial state declared and Israel will have to deal with all the legal pressure the Palestinians bring down on them.

Restoration, a Sundance award recipient

As they say each year in Park City, Utah, at the annual Sundance Film Festival, everyone who participates is a winner. Just being accepted, working on an independent film, attending a panel discussion, sighting a celebutante, or seeing a film, everyone leaves a winner.

Right.

But still, awards are given out. And last evening, they closed the open bar for 90 minutes in order to hand out some very prestigious awards, including grand jury prizes, audience awards, and special mentions from the judges. Two Israeli filmmakers were among the official award recipients.

Erez Kav-El won the award for best world cinema dramatic screenplay for his script for RESTORATION, the only Israeli film in the official festival. He wasn’t at the ceremony, so the film’s director, Yossi Madmony, stepped up to the podium to accept the award in Erez’s behalf. Madmony is lucky he was even able to get to the awards. An hour earlier, he had locked himself out of his Park City condo. Luckily, he made it in time.

RESTORATION, which is also known in Israel as BOKER TOV ADON FIDELMAN, is the magical wake up call for and story of Yaakov Fidelman (Sasso Gabay) and his Israeli shop that restores antique furniture; from the shop he can shut out the world. Yaakov knows wood. His business partner, Maxim Malamud, knows people. Actually, Maxim KNEW people. Maxim has suddenly died (after a tryst with a prostitute), and with the loss of the shop’s public face and personality, the business might not survive. Maxim provided Yaakov with the personality he never developed, sort of like the way a twin (Esau) would have taken half the assets.

Yaakov’s son, Noah (Nevo Kimchi), is an attorney with great ambitions. Noah and the quietly dour Yaakov have never been close as son and father, and one can say that Noah perceived Maxim more as his father. Noah says kaddish for the childless Maxim. Noah would prefer to close the shop, forget about restorations, and build apartments atop the workshop.

Anton (Henry David), a mysterious, homeless, former pianist enters the store and becomes Yaakov’s assistant and “new son.” Anton notices the century old Steinway in the corner of the shop. Restoring and selling it would generate the needed cash to save the shop, but it doesn’t just need restored wood, it needs more, just like the Tin Man, Lion, and Pinocchio. Anton also eyes Noah’s very pregnant wife. Chava/Eve (Sarah Adler), a former Israeli teen idol. Notice the names… sure Maxim means great, Fidelman means faithful, but with names like Yaakov, Hava, and Noah, you know it’s gonna get very biblical… or not. The four piece chamber-music score by Avi Belleli quietly reinforces the tensions between the four primary characters

Madmony, who previously co-directed THE BARBEQUE PEOPLE (2003), worked on the script with Erez Kav-El for 18 months before even shooting it. His budget was $400,000. Madmony is a graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in Jerusalem. After his film won the screenplay award, Madmony wrote, “We worked on the script together for more than a year and a half, and our main goal was to give the audience the least information possible and yet still have the most compound and complex story that could possibly be. In this sense, I’m very happy that our efforts proved themselves. In another sense, I feel as if we won the best prize today, since the script is the main weapon of low budget productions. I feel as if I’m on the top of the world – and of course right now, that means the top of Utah”

Erez Kav-El’s previous scripts included one for “Five Hours from Paris (Hamesh Shaot m’Pariz),” a 2009 film about an Israeli cab diver who fears flying (but not Israeli traffic), who meets a Russian-born woman in a humble suburb of Tel Aviv. She is a teacher about to fly five hours to Paris. Another script was for “Like a Fish Out of Water,” a 2007 Israeli TV comedy about a new oleh from Argentina who falls for his Israeli Hebrew teacher. Erez is on the faculty of Tel Aviv University in Ramat Aviv.

After hearding the news of his award, Erez Kev-el said, “Winning the screenplay award at Sundance is an extremely exciting milestone for me on the long journey I did with this script, a journey I started alone and later joined by producer Chaim Sharir and director Yossi Madmony. I could not have asked for better partners. Working with Yossi on the script was an enriching and inspiring experience. Yossi taught me that you can never go deep enough. There are not many moments of celebration in the life of an Israeli filmmaker; I thank the Sundance film festival for giving me one.” The producer of the film, Chaim Sharir, added, “As filmmakers who have no chance to compete with Hollywood’s power and film marketing, Sundance is the ultimate answer and a wonderful opportunity to expose our works to the world. And thanks god for Sundance and Robert Redford”

Beautifully composed and edited, and without a hint of politics, many critics saw RESTORATION as a turning point in international Israeli cinema.

This year, the Sundance Institute partnered with the Mahindra Group, one of the largest companies in India, to create the Mumbai Mantra|Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab and the Sundance Institute|Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award. One of the five recipients was Talya Lavie for her film “ZERO MOTIVATION.” Her film is a slightly comic look at the power struggles of three female clerks over one year in an administrative office at a remote army base in the Israeli desert.

Illustration for Zero Motivation

In ZERO MOTIVATION, three consecutive stories (The Substitute, The Virgin and The Commander) recount the events at an army base, but unlike other army genre films, the female clerical staff members have the lead roles. The film depicts the three soldiers’ journeys inside the maze of military bureaucracy. To paraphrase Anton Chekhov’s letter to A. S. Gruzinsky in 1889, “If you put a loaded STAPLE gun in the first act, it better get fired in the next act.”

Talya Lavie, a resident of Tel Aviv, is a graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem and studied the Bezalel Art Academy.

Mazel tov to the judges, these two winning films, and those involved in their creation.

This is the BBC film about the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla which has garnered severe reprobation from supporters of the Palestinians, including accusations of racism against the BBC.

Wondering who could possibly find “racism” in this film, I looked up the person to whom this accusation was specifically attributed in the Jerusalem Post. Her name is Ewa Jasiewicz.

Who is she? A Journalist, a coordinator of the Free Gaza movement and a former ISM activist. Jasiewicz has been quoted in the past (by the BBC, no less) saying,

“I have been a journalist for five years and no one will manipulate me into any sort of agenda or violence.”

So then, one has to believe that when Jasiewicz sees this BBC film about the flotilla her group organized, a film which has not any form of racism in it or in its broadcast, and states,

the whole tone and framing of the program was “utterly Islamophobic and racist and demonizing of Muslim activists.

That she is either a poor reporter, a liar or has lost all sense of proportion when it comes to understanding racism.

Hmmmm, which could it be?

To help us learn, here is a video of Ewa introducing a pro-Palestinian movie to a group of activists and among other whoppers, such as calling Gaza a “ghetto,” there is a priceless moment where this woman, a leader of the Free Gaza movement, a journalist who calls this BBC film “racist,” (at minute 6:00 of the video) tries to prepare the listeners for the obviously derogatory use of the term “al Yahud” (the Jew) by Palestinians in the film. She says that “of course” they only mean Israelis and Zionists, not all Jews.

Of course. This from a woman who uses “ghetto” as part of her rhetoric.

In minute 8:00, she takes great pride in supporting the Palestinian “resistance” and she clarifies that she means both Palestinians “staying alive” and their “armed resistance.” In other words, she is supportive of the rockets launched by Gazan Palestinians at civilians in the Western Negev, Ashkelon, Be’ersheva, Sderot and so on. She is happy she and other activists were “able to help everybody.” This, of course, raises the question of whether she also supports the violence planned and executed by members of the Free Gaza flotilla against Israeli troops.

As a clue as to where she stands on this issue, in the second part of this video, towards the very end, she will claim that all of Israel’s actions are illegal and all of Hamas’s actions are legal in this conflict.

Conclusion? If you watch her lips move and the subject is Israel and the Palestinians, you can assume that what she says is going to be biased and part of an agenda. and very possibly an outright falsehood or even an intentional lie. You can also assume that the people, like her, who organized the flotilla, have little to contribute in the way of an honest discussion about what happened. If you watch the ending of the BBC film, you will see the key Free Gaza organizer of the flotilla admit that the loss of lives is simply part of the struggle on behalf of the Palestinians…

By the way, you can thank me later. I could have picked videos with Ewa’s previous haircut. She looks much better now. I guess Free Gaza activists care more about fashion than ISM activists, or at least they let their bangs grow out.

They’re probably 18 or 19 years old and they’re having fun. They are not hurting anybody and they’re not being violent, hostile or demeaning. In contrast with the propagandist who put the comments on the Youtube video, it seems the reason the street is empty is that the hour is first light of day and the first call of the mu’azzin.

And yet, it seems these young men don’t understand the meaning of their standing and dancing for joy while wearing military garb and carrying weapons in an area which has a majority Arab, non-Israeli population. It’s a small thing and can even be read as nothing more than childishness reflecting youth, joy and humor. On the other hand, it reflects a callousness to the meaning of having to be a civilian under somebody else’s military rule and a view of the ones under their military rule as “others.” It may be necessary, but having Israeli troops in the midst of another population has a slow and insidious effect on them and the country as a whole, if only because it engenders insensitivity and callousness towards those who have no choice but to live under the rule of their conquerors.

The soldiers are being punished by their officers. I get why they should be punished, but the problem isn’t with the soldiers, it’s with the untenable situation.

Haven’t had enough of the pain and self-examination that is Israeli cinema?  Was Waltz with Bashir a little too comedic and light-hearted for you?  Here’s a movie of four hot Israeli guys in a tank! It’s called Lebanon.  For the maximum viewing experience, I recommend you watch with a photocopied, bound book of all the resolutions the U.N. has ever passed against Israel and flagellating yourself with it every time the tank shoots an innocent civilian.

Bring back Kazablan.  Please.

Since yesterday, I have been tweeting about the Israeli humanitarian aid efforts in Haiti (from my personal account) as well as pulling articles from StandWithUs, and thankfully it has been retweeted a few dozen times.

For Israel, to fly over 220 volunteers, medics, doctors, search and rescue experts, and more to Haiti, half way around the world (6495 miles or 10,453 km to be exact), is nothing short of amazing. To then have the only fully operational field hospital set up in Haiti performing surgeries run by the Israeli delegation, that is jaw-dropping. Israel is upstaging the rest of the world with their organized coordinated effort as well as their compassion and commitment to save human lives.

As a proud American, I am somewhat embarrassed that we don’t yet have a working field hospital set up in Haiti. The fact that Israel, the 96th most populous country, has outshone the U.S., the 3rd most populous country (and supposedly the most advanced), is shameful. While the U.S. did send thousands of soldiers and marines, and will be sending nearly $100 million in aid, if we can’t save lives now, what will the money be good for later?

Is there a way we can press Congress to do more? I don’t know. Please comment below if you have suggestions.

Resources on Israel’s Efforts in Haiti:

• PRAISE FOR ISRAELI MISSION IN HAITI: ‘ONLY ONES OPERATING’ Article from Ynet & Video from CNN
• ISRAEL SENDS 220-STRONG RESCUE TEAM TO HAITI; TENS OF THOUSANDS FEARED DEAD Article from Haaretz & Video from CBN

Israeli Organizations currently working in Haiti on this mission:

• IDF
• ZAKA
• IsraAID
• Magen David Adom
• If you know about others, please comment below.

Two Boeing 747s from El Al airlines were used by the IDF to transport the 220-member rescue team and equipment.

Be Proud of Israel. She is doing amazing work!
~Dani

Donate to these organizations doing great work in Haiti:

• Magen David Adom
• ZAKA
• UJA Federation of NY – all donations go to agencies and other groups based in New York and Israel doing work in Haiti
• There are other orgs doing great work. Comment below and let us know






Footage from IDF Field Hospital in Haiti, Including Baby Delivered There, Named ‘Israel’


IDF Field Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti


]]> http://www.jewlicious.com/2010/01/be-proud-israel-only-ones-operating-in-haiti/feed/ 41 http://www.jewlicious.com/2009/01/the-impact-of-palestinian-rocket-terror-on-israeli-children/ http://www.jewlicious.com/2009/01/the-impact-of-palestinian-rocket-terror-on-israeli-children/#comments Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:22:47 +0000 anav http://www.jewlicious.com/?p=6894

Photo: Anav Silverman, Sderot Media Center

There have been many questions bouncing around in the media this week. Why is Israel at war? Why are there so many Hamas men dead? Why are Hamas firing rockets at Israel? A war of resistance, some say. Israel is holding a siege against Gaza. Palestinians are starving and suffering.

And who is to blame?

Israel of course. At least that is the conclusion that emerges within the headlines of AP and Reuters news reports, European news media, and countless Internet blogs on the current fighting.

For those who seek objective answers to those questions, the unfolding tragedy of Sderot and the western Negev must be taken into account.

There has been a war of terror on Sderot from more than eight years now. During this time period, an estimated 8,000-10,000 Palestinian rockets have been fired at Sderot and the western Negev from the Gaza Strip. There was not one serious long-term military response from Israel to the rocket attacks during that time besides the closing of crossings and checkpoints.

In the meantime, hundreds of Israelis homes and properties have been destroyed, over 700 Israelis wounded, and thousands psychologically traumatized by Palestinian rocket fire. Periodically, schools in Sderot and the western Negev have been forced to close, as normal life cruelly transforms into a marathon of 15 seconds, (the number of seconds one has to escape to shelter when the Tzeva Adom, or Red Color alert is set off by an impending Palestinian rocket).

Sderot and western Negev residents have been forced to sit and endure Palestinian rocket terror to the point that there is now a generation of Sderot children who are showing signs of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as early as age three.

In a recent report in the major Israeli newspaper, Ma’ariv, Yaron Sasson writes of children in Sderot being born into a period of siren alerts, or Tzeva Adoms and the sound of Kassam explosions. These sounds of war have become part of the psychological makeup of Sderot children. It is not surprising then that psychological research conducted among Sderot residents has produced some very disturbing findings.

According to research done by Sderot’s Hosen Center, a treatment center that offers support and counseling to Sderot residents during times of emergency, there is a major problem appearing in young Sderot children, the generation born into Kassams.

Clinical psychologists working at the center discovered that many Sderot children are not developing speaking skills at a rate appropriate to their age. A normal child learns to speak around the age of one. But many children in Sderot have not even begun to speak by the age of three or even four. Those who are able to speak, stutter and cannot complete words.

Dalia Yosef, director of the Sderot Hosen Center, explains that the constant rocket fire upon Sderot has created a state of stress and panic that has dramatically impacted the development of young Sderot children.

Yosef and the clinical psychologists who work with her, counsel Sderot children from the ages of one to 18, offering treatment for a wide variety of issues.

“It is important to note,” says Yosef, “that these Sderot children have been born into a reality of constant rocket fire. The world, as it appears to them, is unsafe and scary, full of insecurity and chaos. Their sense of security has been shattered by the continuous rocket attacks.”

“These children develop symptoms of PTSD early on, suffering from sleeping disorders, nightmares and anxiety attacks. Many experience regression, going back to wetting their beds,” says Yosef.

Those children whose parents suffer from signs of post traumatic stress disorder, have even more complicated issues. According to Yosef, children of parents diagnosed with PTSD sense that their parents cannot protect them. “These kids’ problems are even more severe than kids whose parents are more psychologically stable,” says Youssef. In Sderot, 30% of adults have been diagnosed with PTSD.

Yosef explains that a young child hears the rapid breathing of his parent, when the Tzeva Adom sound and understands that his parent is frightened. “Once the child understands this, then he perceives that the world is unsafe and that his parent is unable to properly protect him,” adds Yosef. “The parent feels threatened and so does the child. Later on, this feeling of insecurity and stress affects the child in areas like speech, hindering normal speech development.”

Younger children go back to the bottle, to the pacifier, and have extreme difficulty separating from the parents. “Kids are scared to go to the bathroom or to the shower by themselves, because of the fear of a rocket strike,” says Yosef. “The situation has created unhealthy relationships within the family unit. Children as old as 12 sleep with their parents.”

Even during the recent ceasefire or days where Kassams don’t fall regularly on Sderot, the trauma and stress continue because people continue to anticipate rocket attacks. “Only a permanent long term quiet will help these children and their parents recover,” says Yosef. “The moment there is a siren alert and a rocket explosion, all the progress we have made in the treatment is destroyed.”

The Sderot Hosen Center offers treatment for children and parents together. “We give parents the tools and skills need to maintain a sense of calm in situations of terror,” explains Yosef. “Because parents are the authority figures in the family, we focus on them and try to identify ways in which they can be more relaxed in this tense environment.”

Livnat Shaubi, a lifelong resident of Sderot and the oldest in a family of 11 children, recently spent an entire day with her younger siblings, helping them find ways to cope with the Hamas war on southern Israel. After spending four days at home, exhausting Lego, board games, and playing balls, the Shaubi boy–Hananel, David, and Yehuda, ages 5, 7 and 11, respectively, created Kassam rockets from plastic bottles they found lying in the house.

“Like other Sderot kids, my mom cannot allow my younger siblings to play outside during these periods of rocket attacks. “My brothers are cooped up all day and therefore these art projects, an important outlet for their creativity, simply reflects the reality around them” says Shaubi

Shaubi told Sderot Media Center that the first words her five-year-old brother, Hananel learned to say, along with Daddy and Mommy, were ‘Tzeva Adom’ (Red Color, the name for the siren alert).

“These kids know war,” she adds. “Soon it will be the children in Be’er Sheva, Ashkelon and Ashdod, who will join them.”

And this is exactly why Israel is currently engaged in this war–to prevent the tragedy of Sderot from spreading to one million other Israelis who are currently experiencing for their first time the impact of Palestinian rocket fire in some of Israel’s major cities. Israel’s children and Gaza’s children deserve a quiet future, one with normal childhood experiences, where threats in the form of Palestinian rockets are finally laid to rest.

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