Israeli Morale Remains High
This article is courtesy of Moment Magazine
by Caroline B. Glick

Despite Palestinian terrorism and fears of a wider war, an overwhelming majority of Israelis are optimistic about the future and believe Israel will meet the challenge.

The burgeoning, anarchistic Tel Aviv skyline is not the first place one would look for the pure distillation of Zionism. However, in mid-November of last year, the management of the Azrieli towers, a 50-story Israeli version of the World Trade Center, decided to "unfurl" the flag and issue a battle cry: 24,000 blue and white lights formed a gigantic, electronic Israeli flag across the 97,000-square foot face of the Middle East's tallest tower. Atop the electronic flag a message flashed continuously, like a stock quotation, from dusk to dawn: Ze B'yadaim shelanu, "It's in our hands."

The skyscrapers of the Azrieli towers (one circular and one triangular; a rectangular tower is under construction) have symbolized since their 1999 opening the post-ideological, globalized, high-tech world. They are a physical expression of Israel's longing for normality and acceptance. The notion that two years later the structures would promote the vision of classic nationalist Zionism would have seemed oxymoronic when the center opened. But the lights flickered non-stop for two months and are set to shine once again on Israeli Independence Day, April 17.

In addition to lighting up the skyscraper, the Azrieli Group distributed half a million bumper stickers with the same statement and 250,000 Israeli flags for motorists to put on their cars.

In the past year and a half, Israelis have absorbed the most devastating terrorist onslaught in the country's history, and experienced a deep economic recession caused both by deterioration of the security situation and the global economic slowdown. Tourism in Israel, though only 2.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product, has taken a near-fatal blow. In the past, tourism showed Israelis that in spite of all of Israel's difficulties, foreigners will visit. But in 2001, Israel had only 1.2 million tourists—nearly 1.5 million fewer than in 2000. The economy lost some $2 billion in tourism revenue, and 30,000 tourism-related workers joined the ranks of the unemployed. Israel's high-tech sector also suffered: By January of this year, 250,000 Israelis, 10 percent of the total work force, were unemployed.

Statistics paint a very disturbing picture indeed. And yet a recent study shows that the skyscraper's Zionist message reflects how Israelis feel these days. The results of extensive polling of Israelis conducted between October 2000 and November 2001, published by Professor Gavriel Ben-Dor of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa, show that the Palestinian terrorist war (which has claimed more than 250 Israeli lives since it began in September 2000) while striking fear in the hearts of Israelis, has also made them staunchly resolved to stand and fight. According to the data, released at the December 2001 Herzliya Conference on the Balance of National Strength and Security, 90 percent of Israeli Jews feel powerfully patriotic—proud of their country and resolved to remain at any cost—while at the same time 83 percent of Israelis fear that terrorism manifests a danger to their lives and the lives of their families. Eighty-eight percent of Jewish Israelis have faith that the Israel Defense Forces are able to protect them and win any war while 77 percent fear Arab countries are likely to attack their country. In spite of Palestinian terrorism and fears of a wider war, an overwhelming majority of Israelis are optimistic about the future, with 79 percent expressing the belief that Israel will successfully meet all its challenges.

It's true that a poll conducted for the Ha'aretz newspaper by the Mutagim polling agency in August 2001 indicated that 14 percent of Israel's Jewish population had considered emigrating during the three months leading up to the survey. This was especially true of younger Israelis: While only 2 percent of Israelis older than 65 had flirted with leaving, and 8 percent of Israelis between 45 and 54 had considered this option, a full 28 percent of Israelis between 28 and 34 had considered it.

And yet Israel Ministry of the Interior statistics on emigration rates show no specific rise in emigration since the wave of Palestinian terror began in September 2000. (The same is not true for Palestinians. See sidebar, facing page) According to Ben-Dor's study, 90 percent of Israeli Jews agreed with the statement: "Israel is my home and I have no plan to leave." And Jewish immigration to Israel has been largely unaffected by the violence. In 2001, the Jewish Agency reported that more than 40,000 Jews, mostly from the former Soviet Union, made aliyah, and that aliyah levels from Argentina, which recently suffered a debilitating economic collapse, have risen by more than 40 percent.

National pride has no doubt been strengthened by ordinary citizens' individual acts of heroism. Since September 2000, the heroism of the man in the street prevented several attacks and may have saved hundreds of lives. This everyman's valor has become the quiet, unwavering accompaniment to the agony, grief, and anger at terrorist attacks, which have averaged one attack an hour over the past year and a half, according to Lt. Col. Olivier Rafcowicz of the Israel Defense Force.

Take the story of Jerusalemite Menashe Nuriel. On Aug. 2, 2001, Nuriel, an Egged bus driver on a pre-Shabbat run from Jerusalem to Kiryat Shemona, became suspicious of a young Palestinian holding a bag who had tried to board his crowded bus just south of Beit-Shean. Nuriel asked the young man to tell him where he was going. When the man responded by dropping his bag on the floor, exposing wires and switches inside, Nuriel understood that he was looking at a suicide bomber. The terrorist quickly grabbed the bag. Rather than panicking, Nuriel pushed the would-be mass murderer off his bus, wrested the bag away, called to the soldiers aboard the bus to help him subdue the Palestinian, and then drove his passengers to safety. The bomb—made up of three mortar shells, explosives, and a detonator—was powerful enough to have killed or seriously wounded everyone on board. After the incident, Nuriel, a slightly overweight, fatherly, utterly unextraordinary-looking family man, told reporters: "At some point I think I said to myself, or maybe I shouted it, that it was better that he and I be killed than all my passengers. There were about 45 people on board at the time."

Twelve hours after a May 18 suicide bombing outside a shopping mall in Netanya left five dead and 60 wounded, Jerusalem pub owner Dina Dagan—an urbane, 40-something Jerusalemite sporting short-cropped brown hair, a black T-shirt, and silver jewelry—saved the lives of about 100 teenagers in her bar, "Bikini." At 2 a.m., Dagan noticed a bag on one of the sofas left by a Palestinian youth, who had in previous months been a frequent patron of the pub. Dagan quietly picked up the bag and set it down outside, calmly evacuated the young revelers, and called the police. Police sappers arrived and detonated a medium-sized bomb. When asked later by reporters how she had the courage to pick up what she rightly assumed was a bomb, Dagan replied: "I don't know how I had the nerve to do it, but all I could think of was the kids."

These acts of individual valor testify to the potent sense of responsibility Israelis feel toward one another—a modern manifestation of the talmudic dictate, Kol Yisrael arevim ze l'ze, All of Israel is responsible for one another (Talmud Shevuot 39 and Sanhedrin 27).

And in the past year and a half, a number of volunteer organizations have been established to aid victims of terrorism. For instance, after the June 2001 massacre at the Dolphinarium Discothèque in Tel-Aviv, which left 22 dead and more than 150 wounded (mainly teenage immigrants from the former Soviet Union), a group of Soviet-born psychologists organized to provide care for the victims and their families. According to psychologist Vadim Rotenberg, "It is clear to us that as new immigrants, many of the victims and their families, have difficulties that are unique from other victims of terrorism. We work with them to overcome their specific problems stemming from the atrocity."

Another volunteer organization, Simcha Tamid, formed in January 2001, helps children orphaned or injured by Palestinian terrorism. Its founder, 23-year-old Yitzhak Shlisel, explains, "Our volunteers, mainly high school students, meet with the children at their homes a few times a week, help them with their studies and play with them. We also organize 'fun days' when we bring the kids together for magic shows or trips to museums or amusement parks."

This past summer, several communities on the Golan Heights and in the Galilee organized summer camps for children from the West Bank and Gaza, providing them with a release from the constant pressure they have been living under in their towns.

Taken together, the growth of private non-profit organizations for terrorism victims and their families and the individual heroism of ordinary citizens go a long way toward explaining Professor Ben-Dor's findings, which most Israelis recognize: Rather than causing them to cave in, a year and a half of Palestinian terrorism—while heightening fears for personal safety—has stiffened Israeli resolve to stay the course.

Explanations for this state of affairs are relatively similar across the political and ideological spectrum. The near consensus among Israelis is that by refusing then-prime minister Ehud Barak's unprecedented offer for peace at Camp David in July 2000, and subsequently initiating a terrorist war against Israel, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority have proven that they are not interested in making peace and that the Palestinian state to which they aspire is not one that would live side by side with Israel. Rather, as former Prime Minister Barak puts it, it's "One that will replace Israel." Israelis understand: They must fight this war.

That's even true for Israelis like Moti Ashkenazi, an almost mythic personality remembered for fomenting and leading the anti-government protests of army reservists at the end of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 (which precipitated the resignations of then-prime minister Golda Meir and defense minister Moshe Dayan). Ashkenazi had run afoul of the Israeli army when, immediately after the Six-Day War of 1967, he started a movement calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Since 1977, Ashkenazi has been involved in several attempts to form a Social-Democratic political party in Israel, which would give equal attention to economic equality and peace making with the Arabs. Jerusalemite Ashkenazi, today a 60-year-old white-haired physicist turned entrepreneur and strategic advisor to Israel's National Security Council, feels that the current strength of Israeli resolve is the result of the "clarity of purpose that came in the aftermath of the shattering of the dream of peace with the Oslo Process."

In Ashkenazi's view, "After Arafat refused Barak's offer at Camp David and now continues to insist on the return of millions of Palestinians to Israel, the difference between the right and left wings in Israel disappeared. Aside from the delusional fringes of the left wing … the public in Israel speaks in one voice today. And that voice says, 'Today our homes are being attacked, and we're not going to budge.'"

Ashkenazi believes the general public now takes its behavioral cue from Israelis living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "The residents in the territories have really set an example for the nation of personal heroism and collective grace under extreme pressure. Because Arafat refused Barak's offer, which included the evacuation of over 100 Israeli towns in the territories, people realize that the struggle is not about territory but about the essence of our existence here. The public will not abide terrorism breaking its spirit or belief in itself."

Ashkenazi's assessment of the public's sentiments regarding the Israeli residents of the territories is backed up by opinion polling data taken since the outbreak of violence. Before the terrorist onslaught began in September 2000, common wisdom had it that Israelis were moved less by terrorist attacks in the territories than by those that took place inside Israel's pre-1967 borders. Today, a consistent 75 to 80 percent of Israelis say there is no difference between attacks on Israelis within the pre-1967 borders and attacks on those living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Fully 61 percent of Israelis agree with the statement that "a war over a small community is like a war for Tel Aviv."

How do Israelis cope with the constant fear of terrorist attacks? According to American-born Israeli novelist Naomi Ragen, to continue with a semblance of normality in daily life "we tell ourselves silly stories that give us a sense of control. When your alarm clock goes off, you say to yourself, 'I can stay in bed and be safe or get on the bus and be blown up.' So you get out of bed and take a taxi to work. Or, if your teenage son asks to go out with his friends on a Saturday night you say to yourself, 'Since there was a bombing there yesterday, chances are it will be okay if he goes out today,' and you give your permission."

Ragen compares life in Israel today to the situation in Beirut in the mid-1970's when, like today, Arafat and the PLO operated a mini-terrorist state within a state in Lebanon. "People in Beirut would plan their trips to the supermarket around the sniper fire routine. Here, people living in the West Bank plan their drive to work around the time of day the last shooting took place on the highway."

According to Knesset member Yuval Steinitz, a former Peace Now activist who joined the Likud party in late 1994, "The strength and resolve of the Israeli public has surprised the political leadership of the country."

One of the reasons the politicians have been so surprised by the nation's will to endure and persevere is the general belief that the Israeli public dealt poorly with Iraqi Scud missile attacks during the 1991 Gulf War and would be unable to endure another Palestinian uprising. The image of thousands of residents of Tel Aviv crowding into their cars every afternoon to leave the city before the nightly missile attacks aimed at their rooftops was interpreted as cowardice by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who believed that he had to cut a deal with the PLO as quickly as possible in order to prevent Israeli society from collapsing.

Retired IDF general and terrorist expert Meir Dagan, who headed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's negotiating team with U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni, is not the least bit surprised by the Israeli public's bravery this time around. "The Israeli people are stronger than their political leaders," Dagan said. "The personal assessment that every Israeli makes when looking at the situation is that we have no other land, this is our home and we have to do what it takes to be free. The pain that we feel after each terrorist atrocity just heightens our understanding that we need to stay and fight because we understand that the other side doesn't want to make peace with us."

Dagan rejects the notion that Israelis exhibited cowardice during the Gulf War. "When the missiles were falling on Tel Aviv the politicians said it was wrong for people to evacuate themselves from the city. This was patently absurd. It wasn't as if they were deserting. They didn't leave the country. The decision not to sleep in a town when there was a threat of chemical warheads being lobbed at you during the night was logical. It had nothing to do with people's resolve."

Israelis, in a perverse sort of way, warmly remember the Gulf War. The macabre "fun" of the period found its most popular post-war depiction in Siren's Song, a best-selling pulp fiction novel by Israeli writer Irit Linor. The book, published in 1992, chronicled the misadventures of a yuppified young woman in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War; it was later adapted into an Israeli movie, which became a blockbuster. In one memorable scene, the heroine, an advertising executive named Talila, walks into her firm a few weeks into the Scud missile attacks to find her co-workers eating Chinese food and placing bets in the office pool. The pool was not about football; her coworkers were guessing which nights the missiles would fall and whether their payloads would be conventional or non-conventional. After all the others had made their bets, a red-headed scantily clad secretary, chewing her noodles, slurps out authoritatively, if indifferently: "Tonight—no attack, tomorrow—regular missiles, and Thursday—chemical."

According to Ragen, "The Gulf War was easier than what we're undergoing now because the government told us what to do—seal your rooms, put on your gas masks. We all had the duct tape and cellophane. We knew what was expected of us. Now, we are just supposed to figure it out on our own."

During the Gulf War, the late singer-songwriter Meir Ariel's song "We Got Through Pharaoh, We'll Get Through This," became the national hit. Israeli humor soared to new heights as the comedians on the hit television show Zehu Ze, or That's It, outdid themselves with parodies of Saddam's bunker that had the nation reeling with glee. This time around, the Azrieli tower sign is the only striking popular message that has started to catch on—and it took more than a year of violence for it to appear.

And yet, experts say, that is not a sign of flagging morale. Steinitz asserts that the solidarity of the Israeli public is all the more astounding given the absence of hope today for achieving a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "It is not simply that we are dealing with unprecedented levels of terrorism," he says. "There is also the psychological blow that there is no chance of peace. You see it not only in the peace camp, which feels that the Palestinians cheated them, but even in the nationalist camp that rejected the premises of the Oslo process, because at the end of the day, all Israelis are willing to pay a price for peace."

Avi Bell, an American-born Israeli attorney living in Jerusalem, was in the United States on Sept. 11 and draws parallels and distinctions between how Americans and Israelis are coping with the terrorist threat. "The Sept. 11 attacks found me in a garage in Connecticut after my car had broken down on a drive from Boston to New York," he recalled. "I spent the day at the mechanic's watching TV news reports and talking to people I would never meet again. I sensed that what the people around me felt was very 'Israeli.' It's what we have been feeling here in Israel since this wave of terrorism began—anger at the people who attack us; pride in who we are; clarity of purpose in our need for victory and a sense of unity and togetherness."

Bell, for his part, found his own small way to express his contempt for Palestinian terrorism that sums up the feeling of Israelis today. "I put a flag on my car after the massacre of the kids at the Dolphinarium last June," he says. "It's still up and it's going to stay up. It's not going anywhere, and neither am I."