Vignettes from Long Ago in Israel

Israel has been in the news again today and again for all the wrong reasons.  Today it voted to give the government the right to cancel decisions made by the Supreme Court so the government can override decisions made by the Supreme Court any time it wants. It’s yet another step away from true democracy and towards darkness …

However - I was talking the other day with a friend about things that I remembered from my time in Israel and I thought I really should write them down.  In fact, I’m actually going to speak them out loud and let Word do the transcribing into text – three little vignettes all to do with war and guns.

1)

I was 21 when I first went to Israel. I certainly had absolutely zero experience of war apart from knowing old people who had probably been to war.  But I never really had conversations with anybody who had been to war I had this kind of suicidal attraction to the idea of war; to know more about it. I was working every day with people who were probably 5-8 years older than me - certainly all younger than 30 - and they'd fought in two wars already: the 1967 and 1973 wars in Israel.  I was also working with Henny, a volunteer from Holland, and Henny was the same as me. She was fascinated about what it was like for these people who were our friends by now and colleagues that we worked with every day, and we continually asked them “what was it like to fight in a war?” But they would never talk about it and always fobbed us off and moved the conversation somewhere else.

But I guess we were persistent - stupidly - and one day - I don't remember whether it was me or
Henny who asked the question again – “tell us what it was like to fight a war?” but this time Gilboa  slammed his coffee cup down on the table, sat forward on his chair and said something to the effect of “OK if you want to hear about war shut up and listen. This is what it's like" and for several minutes he ranted about what he'd seen, what he felt, and it was clear that it was a very traumatic experience for him to talk about it and it was so blunt and brutal that Henny and I felt the power of his anger, his obvious disgust, his unwillingness and shame. He talked about a specific occasion somewhere between Israel and Cairo when they were moving through Egyptian villages taking villages one by one as the Egyptian soldiers retreated and they had been told that there were still soldiers in this village. But when they attacked the village, and it was a full-on onslaught, and when everything was quiet the Israeli soldiers went into the village and found that all the men had long gone and all they'd done is killed and terrorised women and children. It was an occasion in my life where I realised it's very unfair and uncool to ask someone who's been in a war to tell you about what it's like because it's so horrific;  it's so traumatic; they should never have to relive what they've seen and done and felt but the damage was done. Henny and I got to hear what it was like to be a soldier in a war and I think we were ashamed that we'd been so persistent in asking for this story from our colleagues in the chicken houses.

2)

Wherever you go in Israel there are guns. It's a fact of life every time a group of people go anywhere there's always an armed guard with the group. I don't mean like a family group going down to the shop but a school group, or kibbutz group, or a group from a club would always have an armed guard with them and so it was even on Shabbat evenings when no work was done and it was normal for us to have what we called a disco on Friday nights.  The volunteers and young Israelis would gather and dance and drink and have fun.  On one of these nights I had this vision burned into my brain of something that was amazing and beautiful. I think the soldier in this story was actually Kobi. I'd become friendly with Kobi so I knew him as a fellow worker and fellow young person on the kibbutz. This night it must have been Kobi's turn for guard duty. The steps coming down into the cellar where we held our disco on Friday nights were quite steep and I was dancing to the music and I noticed this soldier coming down the stairs - a person in uniform and of course he had a gun (probably an Uzi) and as he reached the bottom step and touched the floor of the disco all in one movement he put his gun up against the wall and danced his way off the bottom step into the people milling around on the on the disco floor in full uniform. I don't know how long he stayed - I'm guessing about 10 minutes - and I watched him wondering how long he would stay and how will he actually disconnect from the dancing crowd but he kind of detached himself from the group and went back on guard duty and without saying a word to anybody.  When the time was up he danced back toward the steps, all in one motion picked up his gun and disappeared up the steps as if he’d never been there.  It was graceful, elegant, and responsible and again it was just one of those moments where I thought ‘this is life in Israel’.

 

3)

Back then, and I'm talking about 1976, 1979, 1981, hitchhiking was very very common in
Israel. All of the soldiers used hitchhiking to get around from base to home to kibbutz to job and it was more or less understood that that's how soldiers got around. They could catch the bus or they could drive themselves but there were always groups of soldiers at major intersections looking for a ride to their destination and it was quite acceptable for young travellers like me to stand near the soldiers and if a car was going to where I was heading or in the right direction I could hop aboard with the soldiers. This happened one day and I'm I found myself in the back of what's a kind of covered ute - just myself and this one soldier. Again probably about my age or maybe a bit older and he's chatting away – where am I from? which kibbutz am I on? what did I think about Israel? The usual kinds of questions but he sensed that something was bothering me.  What it was is that while he was talking to me he was sitting with his legs apart and with his gun - his Uzi -  just kind of supporting him. He's got both his hands on his gun between his legs while he's facing me so his gun’s between me and him. I wasn't in danger; I didn't feel in danger. I just didn't feel very comfortable talking to someone while this gun was right there. His response, without me saying a word, when he realised this was an issue for me, was to throw that gun towards the back of the vehicle loud enough for the gun to clatter when it hit the floor and then he looked at me and said “OK there's no more gun. It's just you and me. Let's talk. “ And we did, and it was a much better freer conversation. I was amazed at how kind of sensitive he was knowing that that's what was preventing us having a decent conversation, and caring enough to want a proper conversation to ditch the gun. I don't remember anything after that. I just remember him throwing the gun away, looking into my eyes saying OK the guns gone let's talk and it's just another moment burned into my memory that I'll take with me to the grave as another example of ‘this was life in Israel.’