What do you do with your small grandchild when a siren begins its terrifying wail and there’s no shelter nearby?

Driving home the other night from a lovely visit to my six-year-old granddaughter and her eight-month-old baby brother, I was listening to the radio.

In the 20 minutes or so it took me to drive from Yokne’am to Zichron Ya’akov, the radio broadcast was interrupted EIGHT times so that those in Ashdod could hear a siren and be given the advice, “Go to the shelter.” Eight times. Eight attacks. TWENTY minutes.

Just one hundred kilometres south of this rolling peaceful landscape, tens of thousands of Israeli civilians were being attacked in their own homes.

A grandmother just like me wasn’t laughing with her grandchildren. She was cradling them and comforting them and telling them there was nothing to worry about as the sirens wailed and the explosions sounded in the night air outside.

Sometimes it’s even hard for some of us here in Israel to really grasp the everyday reality of our Southern countrymen.

Perhaps we can understand that ordinary people in other countries don’t get it. But how, HOW can the media twist and lie about the situation?

What evil drives them to demonize Israel, our tiny country, where we Israelis just want to live in peace in our ancient homeland? This tiny country that has given more to the world than any other. This tiny country that is made up of parents and children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, just ordinary decent human beings. This tiny speck of land that is accused of being “apartheid” when 1.8 million of the 9 million citizens (ALL of whom have equal rights) are MUSLIM.

Why do the BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times, CNN … the list goes on and on … why do they dehumanize us, we who go to such lengths to prevent loss of life of an enemy that chants for our blood, that wants us wiped off the face of the earth?

Who does it help when they wilfully paint this false picture, over and over again?

In one of the last rounds of indiscriminate firing of missiles into the heart of israel, I was caught in a park in Tel Aviv with my five-year-old granddaughter when a siren began its terrifying wail. When you go to feed the ducks this is not something you are expecting. There was no shelter to run to –  so what to do?

Crouch down on the ground with the precious child beneath you, pretend it’s a game, paste a smile on your face and take a selfie.

Meanwhile…the Missile that Killed the Palestinian Baby

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other smaller terror groups recently introduced a new, locally produced rocket called the Burkan. It can ‘only’ reach a few kilometers into Israel but is tipped with a special heavy warhead that contains dozens of kilograms of explosives.

The rockets are launched indiscriminately, and fortunately, many of them landed in open spaces or failed to make it into Israeli territory altogether.

Of course, it didn’t bother them that this imprecision places Palestinians at risk. In fact, they knew that if that happened the world media would immediately blame Israel. And they were so right, weren’t they?

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Article by Pamela Levene

Pamela Levene made Aliya in 1985 and settled on a Moshav. In 1994 and 1995 she became Secretary to the Peace Process, which culminated in the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (Oslo II). After the Peace Talks faltered, Levene left the Foreign Office and became a qualified Israel Tour Guide. She is now retired and her current hobby/obsession is Japan.