Maze of Terror: a Settler's Diary
Fear and faith in a West Bank settlement
On Bus 25, which my boys travel on to and from their school, terrorists shot, killed and injured many passengers. SEPT. 19, 1993. The Arabs are on top of the world because of Rabin's "treaty" with Arafat. The security situation is terrible; Arabs firing on Jewish cars. A father of five, driving Rabbi Druckman from Kiryat Arba to Jerusalem, was killed by gunfire. The rabbi was wounded.
When you feel your life is cheap, when you know you or your loved ones might return covered by an Israeli flag, it is very hard to be strong, to concentrate, to do the work one has to do.
P.S. Kiryat Arba is the new section of Hebron, and in Hebron, Abraham bought land to bury Sarah in. So Sarah is buried there. Abraham next to her. Isaac and Rebecca, too. And the tradition is, Adam and Eve, too. Three couples are buried there. The essence of Kiryat Arba is the atmosphere of a holy burial ground, the atmosphere of death. DEC. 5, 1993. I was at my daughter's parent-teachers' conference when I heard that two people were mortally injured by gunfire next to Kiryat Arba, three people injured. I hurried home to find that the two mortally wounded and the three injured were from one family. Mordechai Lapid, my neighbor, and his son were killed; three of his children injured. Mordechai was the father of 15 children. These are the fifth or sixth people to die this month, after the peace treaty, by gunfire.
Horrible fear pervades here. Anger at the government.
I'm concerned for our children. What psychological effect will seeing their peers and peers' fathers shot to death have on them? Tomorrow their blood, or my blood or my husband's might stain the road. How can I promise them anything when their world is so insecure? When I say our children, I mean all of us who live these terrors now. In addition, the government is cracking down on Jews protesting against the spilling of all the blood. We have seen our friends arrested and put in jail. DEC. 13, 1993. Our battles are to raise deep-thinking, passionate, creative and happy children; to see them marry; to see our grandchildren; to establish a clan that will be rooted. Where will they be rooted?
We have never seen Kiryat Arba as that place. If the settlers win their battle to keep Judea and Samaria under Israeli rule, and without the constant terrorism, we will have no prize from that battle--no land around our house, constant noise of radio and television, neighbors, for the most part, we share nothing with intellectually. If the settlers win, we gain nothing. If the settlers lose, we lose, too. We lose our home, as imperfect as it is.
Early Zionist pioneers went through wars, Arab attacks, malaria and terrorism, but they knew if they won, they would have a land to claim for themselves, for their children, for their grandchildren. American pioneers fought Indians for their ranches--for their homesteads, for their 500 acres for their progeny. Can the Leavitts fight Indians for their 961-square-foot rented apartment, which affords them no privacy or quiet? For an apartment in a town where our children insist they do not want to live?
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