A Society In Shell Shock -- Israelis cope with the routinization of terrorism.
Yossi Klein Halevi - Special To The Jewish Week

Jerusalem — One of my neighbors, a teenage girl I’ll call Noa, was on a bus the other morning when she spotted a fellow passenger who seemed suspicious to her. He was an unshaven young man in a heavy coat — precisely the stereotyped image of a suicide bomber. Then he smiled at her and Noa, recalling reports of suicide bombers who smiled before detonating themselves, panicked.

“Terrorist!” she screamed. The bus immediately emptied of terrified passengers, including the suspect himself, who had no idea that he’d provoked the mass panic. Finally, when people realized the bus was still intact, they got back on — everyone, that is, except for poor Noa, who was too embarrassed and hid in a cafe.

That incident says much about the effects of the last 18 months of terrorist war on Israeli society. With the routinization of terrorism, daily life has become a series of agonizing choices, as we try to outwit the next suicide bomber or gunman aiming for a random crowd. We are the target of an unprecedented experiment to determine how much terrorist pressure is required before a society begins to disintegrate. And while most of us manage to get through the day without panicking, hysteria often feels just below the surface.

Once, a terrorist atrocity was so stunning that it helped define an era. Yet now the attacks occur seemingly by the hour, and one outrage is almost instantly displaced by the next. The intensification of tragedy is overwhelming our capacity to mourn. The result is a growing numbness, a whole society in the early stages of shell shock.

Whatever separation once existed between “the situation” and our private lives has gradually eroded. Ask a neighbor in the parking lot how he’s doing and the inevitable response is a variation of “personally OK, despite the situation.” Aside from everything, everything is fine.

Until this intifada we prided ourselves on being able to walk the streets of any Israeli city or town at all hours without fear. Now, though, parents are afraid to send their children to school. At my youngest son’s kindergarten, they’re collecting money for a security guard.

“Parents!” urges a sign at the entrance, “the lives of your children are in your hands!” We take it for granted that 4-year-olds are targets, too.

Pizza shops and wedding halls and cafes and discos are the front line of this war. We have become expert in evacuating the dead and wounded, wiping the blood from the pavement and repairing the shattered glass. But each new scene of devastation becomes another site marking the intrusion of the demonic into ordinary life.

With each attack, the circle of trauma widens. And it’s not just the victims and their families and friends who are affected. The traumatized include those who were on the scene of an attack and escaped physical injury but were scarred in other ways, and those who could have been there but were deterred by a last-minute fluke.

The other day I went to take out a film at our local video store. Haya, the young woman who runs the shop and always seems to know exactly what each client is looking for, greeted me with a stunned smile. “I was on my way to Moment when it blew up,” she said, referring to the Jerusalem cafe that was targeted recently by a suicide bomber. “I lost four friends. All the things we think are so important — money, personal problems — it’s nonsense. All that matters is life itself.”

Some Israelis surrender to fatalism, others to faith. On Jerusalem buses it is common to see young women praying from little Psalters, invoking protection for what was once a routine ride. Bumper stickers proclaim, “There is no one on whom to rely, except for our Father in Heaven,” not just a plea for divine intervention but a cry of despair toward all political and military solutions. One night recently, I went to the Western Wall hoping for some moments of solitude. In ordinary times, the plaza before the Wall empties at night. Yet now it was restless with pilgrims, some of whom had come simply to rest their heads in the cracks of the massive stones.

For all the attenuation of Zionist idealism, Israel is still capable of surprising itself. During the recent call-up of more than 20,000 reservists, sent into the territories as part of the army’s massive anti-terrorist operation, the response was more than 95 percent. Hardly anyone resorted to the usual efforts of many reservists to plead sick or cite family or work-related emergencies as excuses for evading service.

Stories of heroism have become part of our current narrative, balancing paralysis with vitality. Rather than flee the scene of attack, some passers-by actually try to tackle the terrorists: A would-be suicide bomber who entered a crowded Jerusalem cafe was overpowered by a young waiter, who pinned him down until police came and neutralized the bomb in his bag; on the road below my porch, passengers overpowered a young Palestinian wired with explosives.

Still, this is a society of ordinary people, not heroes. Some Israelis cope with the tension through medication — sales of tranquilizers are at an all-time high. Others seek stability in meditation. Every conceivable “new age” therapy and spiritual practice finds a ready response here. Festivals promoting Eastern spirituality routinely draw massive crowds: On Passover, thousands of young people pitched tents on the beach and joined the Boombamella, an annual celebration of rock music, chanting and prayers for peace.

Yasir Arafat has inadvertently helped us cope by restoring to us a belief in the basic justness of our cause. Probably not since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Arab armies attacked Israel on its holiest day, have Israelis been less morally conflicted. Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, followed by the first intifada of the late 1980s, demoralized and divided us. Now, though, most Israelis believe that we’re fighting for our lives.

“I’ve never felt more certain about why we have to fight,” said a friend of mine, a former paratrooper whose son was drafted recently into one of the army’s elite commando units. “That’s what allows me to sleep at night — when I can.”

Daily life persists; inertia sometimes can feel like victory. It is a relief to recall that not every ambulance siren announces a terrorist attack: Even during war, people are born, get sick and die of natural causes. Last week, I attended a memorial for a colleague, a survivor of the 20th century’s wars who’d managed to remain alive until the age of 82. Near the entrance to the cemetery were posted funeral notices for one of the young victims from Cafe Moment. My colleague’s widow greeted us with a smile. “At a time like this,” she said, “we have to put things in perspective. Michael lived a full life; there are other tragedies to mourn.”

The comfort of an ordinary death.

Back to Independence Day homepage....