Fili’s world

The mobile's ringing.

Yeah? Yeah, everything's okay, you know… why? no, ofcourse I'm not up north, I'm at the Jerusalem mall taking my little sister to see Mission Impossible 3 to help her relax after she finished her last SAT exam. No, I make a special effort not to follow the news, why? No, I'm not going to open the news, just tell me, what? What happened? Really? When? Wait… you know what - don't tell me… I think I don't want to know.

Just a few weeks ago things were looking fine. Everything was relatively routine, people were going about their usual every day life, the economy seemed to be blooming with an exceptionally high growth and sky-high share prices. Israel was just another normal country like any other - getting wasted while watching the World Cup.

But then, out of no-where, everything changes.

Rockets land on the southern cities in Israel close to the Gaza strip, one thing leads to another, and Israel is suddenly facing two fronts of missiles landing in both the southern and northern border, hitting highly populated cities - Shderot/Ashkelon/Kiryat-Shmona/Tfat and just now reaching Israel's 3^rd largest city - Haifa. There are casualties and people dead, soldiers are killed and kidnapped on both fronts. It doesn't take long for the new Israeli government to go full throttle and head into the most complicated use of army force against Gaza and Lebanon I can recall in recent years. Lebanon's a mess, more innocent people suffer from the Israeli wrath. The Israeli newspapers scream "WAR!", everybody looks worried and constantly listen to the news. Tourists flee Israel and Lebanon, the northern cities become ghost towns, Lebanon's completely isolated, the markets come crashing down with the biggest fall in… ages.

"You know, it's weird, because if I wouldn't open the news, there's no way I would know what's going on - being in Jerusalem" I share my utter disbelief over the recent happenings with someone who's watching the news.

"Yeah, we Israelis seem to have an extremely efficient blocking/faking mechanism. I remember coming back from the Lebanon war in 1981 after fighting in Beirut, and just seeing everybody's sitting outside in the restaurants of Tel-Aviv trying their hardest to act as if Israel's a normal place to live in."

Ironic thing is, this whole situation might go back to normal in a few days. That's how crazy reality is in Israel.