i am so embarrassed. i am so incredibly behind and now i can't help but post something. i can't hide anymore! haha. a lot of people have been reaching out to me and my family about the recent security situation here in israel so i figured i would address it on here. there is way too much going on for a tweet or a Facebook post. before i start i want to let everyone know: i trust 1) my intuition and 2) the leaders of my church and 3) the very educated staff of the JC. when i know to get out of a situation i act on it. i have NEVER felt unsafe enough that i need to leave Israel. i am not dumb. if i did, i would be on a plane home. but i have never had a bad feeling. so i will stay here.
so. last week we went on a trip to Jordan. while we were in Jordan the bodies of three kidnapped Israelis were found in the West Bank. they had been kidnapped a few weeks earlier while hitchhiking in the west bank (this is a common thing, but in my mind still incredibly stupid). one of them had dual citizenship in america, so you may have seen it on the news. it was very, very sad. hamas, one of the political islam parties of palestinians, claimed credit for the kidnapping and murder. i still don't know if this is entirely true but either way it was real bad. of course a lot of israelis were very upset. pretty soon after (the first night we were back home in jerusalem) a palestinian teen was kidnapped and was later found dead in a forest near jerusalem. this was also very sad. for a couple days following the discovery of the bodies, during the day but especially at night israeli mobs would gather on the border of palestinian neighborhoods. they were pretty fired up and were ready to be violent. thankfully the police shut them down (this is where the CNN guy got shot with a rubber bullet). these streets/neighborhoods are the streets i walk by almost everyday to get to the Old City, where we go and explore/hang out. so that was pretty scary... i literally recognized all the buildings.
(side note: security doesn't tell us all these things. a couple weeks ago a journalist came in and gave us a forum lecture on the scary realities of journalism in the middle east. basically don't trust anything other than local sources. i talked to him after about some good sources to follow and he gave me a couple good twitter accounts. this is where i get most of my information. i follow both palestinian and israeli law enforcement accounts. if you are interested, my number one suggestion is @IsraelHatzolah on twitter.)
okay. so. as soon as we got back to jerusalem from jordan we got put on lockdown (we can't leave the building at all) because of all this stuff going down. not only were israelis gathering.. but palestinians definitely were too. it is ramadan (biggest muslim holiday, they fast all day for 30 days) right now so it is bad, bad timing. once the sun started to go down, things would get pretty crazy. the JC is located right on the border of palestinian/israeli neighborhoods (specifically hebrew university) so we were RIGHT NEXT to some crazy stuff. every night for probably three nights as the sun went down, things would get real. two nights we couldn't even go outside because there was tear gas in the air. it smelled really bad. outside, we could hear loud bangs and all sorts of stuff. i'm not sure exactly what it was because i went to bed and didn't go outside to watch. I had no desire to see anything. butttt one of my roommates stayed up until 4 skyping her boyfriend in brazil so she told me what she saw/heard. a lot of the boys also stayed up and told me stories the next morning. i guess they could hear a lot of screaming and wailing. some riot police came up the street right next to us, with the shields and everything. they saw one guy get beat up pretty bad. the people who have apartments on the far side of the building also said they couldn't sleep because these flash bomb things they use to blind people were lighting up their windows all night. this happened for a couple nights. pretty crazy stuff. when it got bad security would come and make them go inside and lock the doors.
it all sounds pretty crazy and when you're trying to sleep at night and hear that, it is, but the past week i have become so aware of how inspired the location of the jerusalem center is. seriously. it sounds scary that we live in east jerusalem (technically in the west bank if you look on google maps) but it's actually really smart. all the palestinians really like us. we interact with them on a daily basis, give them good jobs, buy stuff at their stores, and they know we aren't israelis, so they won't attack us. israelis obviously won't attack us. can you imagine what would happen? hahah. we are also in a good position for rockets because all the people that fire rockets are palestinian. they wouldn't want to hit their own community, and even more so, they don't want to hit dome of the rock, which we are really close to. seriously. i would rather be in the JC than anywhere in west jerusalem, or even tel aviv, or anywhere in this country. this is by far the safest building in the country even though it is sometimes surrounded by crazy stuff because of it's location.
so we were on lockdown Thursday night, friday and saturday. on sunday the center encouraged us to get out of the city. so i went to tel aviv. it was great and i felt really safe there. on monday we went to bethlehem and also had a great experience. i will try and post about that soon. when we got home monday night most of our security restrictions were lifted. at first the old city/east jerusalem (palestinian side) were off limits and we had to be back by dark even if we were in west j. but pretty soon we could go in east jerusalem as long as we were out by 4 pm.
then yesterday happened. haha. a lot of people went out into the city yesterday. everything was getting back to normal, more or less. we had a security meeting in the morning that lifted most of our restrictions. meanwhile, i was following stuff on twitter, and a lot of rocket stuff was going down.
so at about 9:50 pm i was doing homework when one of the service couples was walking down the stairs. she was looking at her phone then said, "i think we are about to have a security meeting." that was kind of freaky because it was totally unplanned.. and it was late. so something was up. then out of nowhere security came over the loudspeaker system and announced that at 10:00 we were having a security update meeting in the forum. everyone was way freaked out. the service couples (who have been here for almost a year) were also freaked out because they had never heard the PA used before. so that caused a little panic.
so we all got together in the forum. just as the director of the center was about to start talking the PA system came on again. it said something like "this is an emergency, everyone assemble in the 6th floor bomb shelter."this meant that rockets were being fired AT jerusalem and the sirens were going off. um FREAKY. hahah. i don't know if this has ever happened to you guys, but sometimes extreme things happen so quickly you don't really know how to deal emotionally... so you just start laughing. that's how i took it. haha maybe that's what hysterics are or maybe i really wasn't that scared. maybe that was foolish of me, but honestly i felt so at peace the whole time. i think everyone did. as we all gathered in the bomb shelter there were no tears, no looks of fear.. everyone was very calm. i think everyone knew that things were going to be okay.
we were in there for about 15 minutes or so. the director and some of the security staff was in there with us too. again, i felt totally safe. while we were in there he gave us an update on what was going on outside and protocol for rocket threats and what to do if we were ever caught outside the center. all of the service couples were in there as well as the faculties families. it was sweet to see our professor's wife playing with the other professors daughter as everything unfolded. it's cool to see the human spirit in times of distress. people are legit.
we have a phone in the shelter so top floor security called down to let us know when the all clear was given. we then met in the forum, talked about more security guidelines, and were released for the rest of the night. a lot of us were pretty riled up. we called our parents, did a lot of research, then eventually tried to go to sleep. i slept with my slippers by my bed just in case something happened during the night, but we were fine.
this morning we have had class as usual. we were told that security would let us know of any restrictions this morning, and they did. about halfway through class the director came in to let us know we are again on lockdown, this time for rockets. he said they will update us again after lunch.
so here we are, on lockdown again.. and i'm actually not that scared. you guys shouldn't be either! let me give you a quick breakdown on what i know of rockets, and why i'm not scared of them.
palestinians have no money. seriously. the only time they have had legit missiles and have been a legit threat is when they have been funded by foreign third parties like saddam hussein in the nineties or sometimes syria. that is not happening right now. the rockets that gaza fires are really, really weak. especially the long range ones that would have potential to hit jerusalem. in order for them to get more range, they have to make them lighter, so they take off the warheads... so for these things to hurt you they would literally have to hit you right on the head. not likely. even if they hit the building you are in they kind of just put a hole in the wall then sit there.
what Israeli strikes on GAZA look like
vs...
gaza rocket "attacks" on israel. very small. inaccurate. no big explosions.
(these pictures are from twitter (@IsraelHatzolah), not me)
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all the scary images you see is what israel does to GAZA. not what is happening in Israel.
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the things you see on CNN- the burning buildings, the smoke, the injured citizens.. that is what israel is doing in gaza. while over 200 rockets have been fired into israel the past couple of days, no one has been hurt. seriously. the rockets are not accurate. they mostly hit open fields. it's kind of sad. when israel does detect one that might hit something, it is shot down by what's called the iron dome. it is a mobile anti-aircraft missile thing that shoots a faster rocket at the rocket that has been fired towards israel and detonates it in the sky so that it doesn't hit anyone. it's pretty cool stuff. (to follow the iron dome, follow @IronDomeCount, it is ran by an Israeli soldier that operates the iron dome.)
i really do appreciate a lot of people getting in touch with me. it is nice to know that people care. please don't hesitate to text me, Facebook me, whatever. i would love to answer your questions and i like clearing up things for people. it is hard to understand what is going on from thousands of miles away. i am right in the middle of everything and it is still hard for me to grasp everything. the one thing i hope everyone remembers is that there is something bigger going on here, and both the students and faculty of the Jerusalem Center aren't dumb. if we were in danger, we would come home. Israel has rockets launched at it literally every month. it has just escalated in light of recent events. I have made a promise to my dad (and that's a big deal) that if i ever feel uncomfortable i will come home, and i plan to stick to that. i have faith in my intuition, my church leaders, and this facility. you should too! seriously :) don't worry. i will try to get back at my blogging with all this free time i have. i love all you guys! i hope everyone had a great fourth of july.
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