A generation of Israeli children are growing up in near-constant fear, and the world is all but deaf to their cries.
The ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip is often portrayed as a Goliath vs. David type of scenario.
But that’s the wrong analogy.
Drawing such a comparison would only be accurate had Goliath been a peacekeeper whose primary mission was to shield his people from unprovoked aggression.
Nevertheless, the spin of the international mainstream media has done its job, and most people are now convinced that a militarily-superior Israel comfortably inflicts disproportionate retribution upon an impoverished Gaza Strip in response to the comparatively insignificant firing of crude homegrown rockets.
According to such a narrative, surely the only people suffering are the poor Palestinians.
But that’s an easy myth to dispel for anyone willing to objectively look at both sides of the conflict. Unfortunately, that doesn’t often describe the international mainstream media.
The big story in Israel as Gaza rockets rained down on the Negev region over the weekend was the suffering of Israeli children living there. And not just the trauma produced by this latest round of terrorist violence, but the long-term effects of living life under constant threat.
“Her whole body shook, she locked up on the floor and didn’t move, with her hands on her head. My girl, I’m so sorry you need to go through this,” wrote Sara Dahan, a single mother from the town of Sderot, after watching terror grip her 5-year-old daughter, Tahel.
The heartbreaking caption accompanied a photo of Tahel lying on the floor in a fetal position, despite the fact that they were already in the family’s reinforced protected room that all Israeli homes must have.
After the photo went viral on social media, Sara described to the Ynet news portal her daughter’s troubling condition, which most will recognized as PTSD. “You could say she was born into this situation,” noted Dahan. “It breaks you. It’s not an easy thing to see your daughter fall apart like that and cry. There’s not a lot I can do. Just hold her, reassure her, explain that mommy is here, that mommy is keeping her safe.”
Tahel herself added that she is “always scared.”
And she’s not alone.
Amidst the weekend rocket attacks, 7-year-old Adi Hajbi told Israel’s Channel 13 News that she lives in “constant fear. I always think about how a rocket can simply land on our house and I will die.”
These two little girls are representative of an entire generation of Israeli children who have grown up in the shadow of Hamas-ruled Gaza, a bristling terrorist enclave that thus far has not been adequately dealt with for fear of upsetting delicate Israeli-Arab relations.
No comments:
Post a Comment