Refugee Diary

Yesterday a friend drove me from Beer Sheva to Tel Aviv in a "refugee transport" - i.e. three BGU students. I left in part for safety, but also because classes have been canceled and so many other students are leaving that there is not much to do in the Capital of the South.

As we moved away from home, the land grew greener and we kept wondering, is this in the rocket range? Now are we out? Meanwhile the car radio was pretty crappy so we didn't hear much about what was going on.

This was indicative of the general atmosphere in Tel Aviv, which is "out of range, out of mind." Life continues as usual. Added to that, I have been out in the city so there is no time to check the body counts or hear radio reports. Because life in Beer Sheva already is more home based (there is not much to do outside besides go to classes even when there are no rockets) when I was there we had the radio on nearly all the time.

In Tel Aviv there are protests here and there, but they are groups of 20 or 30 people gathered on a street corner. A few bigger protests have happened in Yafo on Monday and at the cinema last Saturday, and there is a large one planned for tomorrow.

Apparently there are war preparations going on here and in nearby Rishon Letziyon in case rockets start falling, but I have my doubts. If there is going to be violence in Tel Aviv, I think it would more likely be suicide bombings - sorry for the pessimism.

Meanwhile, the traditional left in Israel is gradually waking up. Novelist David Grossman, whose son Uri was killed in Lebanon in 2006, called on Tuesday for a stop to the bombings. Yesterday someone called this strike on Gaza "The Second Second Lebanon War" - the first second Lebanon War was in 2006, and the first Lebanon War in the 80s. The left-wing Meretz party, which was quiet in the first days of the war, has come out with a campaign calling for a ceasefire.

On the other side of the coin, a fair share of Israelis, including the leadership, say that there is no choice, that Hamas forced this war on us, and that it must continue until "goals have been accomplished." Unfortunately, I don't know if anyone knows what those are.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend who is a fellow BGU student. He said he thought this war was a bad idea. I asked him if he would go into reserves if he is called up (students, and nearly all men until their middle age are expected to serve in reserves). "Of course," he answered. "What about protesting the war?" I asked.

"Well, if I don't go into reserves, I'll be abandoning all the people I fought with in regular service," he said.

"How will you express your opposition to the war?"

"I don't know."

Meanwhile, I had a bunch of people over for lunch on Wednesday right after classes were canceled. Someone said the feeling of doing nothing on campus felt like de ja vu. Then it came up that last year classes started two months late because of the professors' strike. The year prior, classes started late because of a students' strike. The year before that, the First Second Lebanon War came during exams, and a load of students were called into reserves when they should have been taking finals. In short - there is no regular school year for students in public universities in Israel. Strikes, war, rockets - it's pretty much all standard.