No. It is about taking care of those in your charge.

You’re so used to seeing the word ‘war’ thrown around, you probably have no idea how to truly catch its meaning. It’s like this: because there’s only one word, war, it suggests there is only one experience that goes with it.

War is frightening, full of uncertainty and fear for our very lives.

But that’s not how everyone experiences it.

Let’s take Netanyahu, for instance. His daily routine is such that he is working in a ‘protected room’ on the basement floor of the Prime Minister’s Office. If there is a warning for a siren, he does not need to move. At night time, he and his family use the underground bunker complex for sleeping. If there is a siren, he does not need to move. And when he is actually on the move? Well, of course, he travels with a mobile bomb shelter.

I wonder… if there are other cars on the road and those people are stuck without a shelter, does he invite them in? If he’s anything like our education minister, then I very much doubt it.

But of course, the Prime Minister of a nation should have the safest measures, no? After all, he is the leader. He looks after the people. The four wars that have broken out since October 2023 – if you do the maths, that’s more than one per year – are not at all his responsibility. He has only been trying to keep us safe. Of course. Just like both of his sons, in reserve service, who are doing their duty for their country.

What do you mean, I’m mistaken?

Let’s have a look at those people in the country who had enough money when building their houses to have a safe room built (yes, it’s the law, and it’s also very expensive) or bought/are renting a house with a safe room. When there is a warning for a siren, they take their phone, and possibly their computer, maybe a few snacks (although, of course their built-in safe room has already been decked out with bottles of water, tins of food, and snacks a plenty) and if they’re nicely prepared, it’ll also home a television. Maybe they’ll crack open a bottle of wine, or a beer. After all, you never know how long you’ll be in there. In the last few wars it has varied from minutes, to hours, to in fact over more than a day. Snacks are vital.

A microwave might also be a good plan.

Let’s go further down the economic scale. Let’s hang out with the people who rent a house or an apartment without a safe room, or who built their house without one, because, let’s face it, it was cheaper, and no one expected or predicted four wars in three years. Day and night, these people drive, ride, walk, or run to the public shelter, whenever they receive a warning to get close to a protected space. Then they wait there to see if there is a siren. There’s something ironic about the feelings arising there. Why aren’t there any missiles already? Did I come all the way here (in the middle of my shower/dinner/zoom meeting etc., you name it, it’s happened) for no reason? Come on! Possibly these are the only Israelis disappointed when the alert turns out to be a false alarm.

These public spaces are full of all sorts of people. The business man, the builder, the first aider, the kindergarten carer, the elderly woman whose dog looks identical to her, the chain-smoking student, the night shift worker… And some of these people have laid down mattresses with sheets and blankets, duvets, sleeping bags, pillows, the works, to sleep there every night.

They’ve not slept at home for over a month.

Then you have a small percentage of people who could join the others in the shelter, and yet, for one reason or another, they don’t. Perhaps they believe in destiny. When it’s their turn to die, they will die, and that’s the end of that. Or the elderly, who have lived through so much terror and tragedy, this war doesn’t frighten them. Neither does death.

And there are those who simply don’t go to a shelter, because who in their right minds would ever believe a missile will fall on them?

(We’ve neighbours, for example, who stand in their clothes’ closet. It’s not any more protected than the rest of their house, but it makes them feel better.)

And then, of course, there are the areas, Arab areas mostly because they simply have not built according to the law, and the other countries (whole countries!) who do not have safe rooms or shelters at all.

Other countries who do not even have alerts, or sirens, and they certainly do not have the Iron Dome.

Other countries are under attack from our planes, the same ones that keep me and my family awake every night, but at least because they are taking off with bombs, not because they are dropping them. They don’t have any security at all. Sometimes leaflets are dropped on the targeted buildings. Or they are told to evacuate areas. But in this war, where a whole regime is the target, individual citizens are not priority. Who would bother taking care of a few people on the ground when a nuclear weapon is on the horizon?

In Iran there has been an estimate of anything between one thousand to over seven thousand deaths. In Lebanon, it’s between one and two thousand. (Due to ongoing internet shutdowns in Iran and southern Lebanon, humanitarian groups warn the actual death tolls are most likely higher than that officially verified.)

Two of the purposes of this war are, apparently: it was begun to end the mass slaughter of innocent citizens from a terror regime, and to put a stop, once and for all, to the potential destruction of our countries. And this is used as justification. Imagine how many would be killed in the future if we hadn’t struck when we did?

No one has the answer. We cannot see into the future.

Yet apparently, our leaders can.

Anyway, at the very bottom of the scale are the people who wait for a bomb to explode, or for it not to explode, near them. Those are their choices.

And ours? As a family? We are not wealthy and not poor. My husband came to this country over fifty years ago. I have been here for six. He works for peace (some say he’s not been very successful, but as amusing as that is, it’s not true. He helped to establish ‘Peace Now’ and thereby peace with Egypt. You just have to persevere, he says, optimistically. And persevere he does.) We rent a nice little cottage in a nice town. We have a dog and three cats. And every day, sometimes once, sometimes up to six times, we run to the public shelter. At night, we sleep in a safe room that used to be rented by friends and whose old landlady kindly lets us use it while the house is still empty.

Sometimes we try to sleep at home, just because it’s our home, and we love it. We are often not successful.

I cannot count on both hands how many nights I have lain awake, waiting for sleep with my eyes, and for an alert, with my ears.

Why have I bothered to explain all of this?

Because I think it is important that ‘war’ is understood in more than one way. It means different experiences to different people.

But one thing is certain.

It is never the leaders and the ministers in our country who suffer the way the people in their charge are suffering.

And that simply shows they are not fit to be leaders.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)