Higher Than Me

I’m really too tired this morning to try to find the words to describe how I’m feeling. We had another sleepless night last night – the fourth in a row – with sirens, loud explosions, and rattling windows. All four of us were huddled up in my daughter’s bedroom – our bomb shelter – with the reinforced door firmly closed and the iron shutter pulled across the window.

In one way, this routine feels familiar. During the Hezbollah rocket attacks last year, we got used to running to a bomb shelter with a minute’s notice. But now, the destruction and loss of life is so much worse.

When we hear the booms outside, I take a deep breath before checking my phone to see where the impact was and how much damage was done. Even then, the information isn’t available straight away. There’s normally a flurry of WhatsApp messages across different groups, passing on snippets of information… the name of a neighbourhood that was struck or a video taken by someone’s friend or neighbour. A few minutes later, the official news channels might report that there was a direct hit or a fire in a certain town or region. Sometimes foreign news outlets carry more details than the Israeli channels. It’s not until several hours later that we begin to understand the full picture, along with images of buildings ablaze or homes reduced to rubble and numbers of casualties.

I have put aside all the tasks that normally compete for my attention during everyday life. They are not relevant now. At this moment, the only things that matter are staying safe and staying calm. And, of course, staying connected to other people. Relationships are a lifeline right now – no less important than bomb shelters and reserves of food and water.

All the messages flying around on WhatsApp – the words of hope and encouragement, as well as the jokes (often rather dark!) help me feel connected. They give us all the sense that we are part of a close-knit community, going through the same thing together.

Knowing there are people outside Israel’s borders holding us in their thoughts and prayers also gives me strength. Sometimes, when I see the news and social media posts of people in other countries, talking about food and summer holidays and the best movies to go and see, I feel painfully alone in this existential crisis that we find ourselves in the middle of here in Israel. Messages of love and support from friends around the world who are standing with us and praying day and night reassure me that we are not forgotten.

I am also following closely how other countries are reporting this war. It feels surreal seeing images on foreign news channels of Israeli buildings turned to dust, babies being rescued from the rubble alongside their shell-shocked mothers. Part of me wonders cynically whether the Israel-haters around the world will be happy now that it’s not just Gazan children who are being killed and maimed. Now that we, too, have sacrificed our children, are we worthy of international approval?

There are so many different feelings. And I am too tired and emotionally raw to process them all.

The international voices that impress me the most are the rare few journalists and commentators who express gratitude to Israel for having the courage to take on the great poisonous octopus that is Iran, with tentacles of terror reaching far beyond its borders. I have read pieces thanking Israel for laying herself down and paying with her own blood to destroy the weapons of a tyrannical regime that poses a danger to the whole world.

This is a point that is so important for people around the world to understand. When we look at Hamas and the events of October 7th, and when we see all the other terrorist regimes that Israel has been fighting for the past twenty months, they are all proxies of Iran. Hamas was only able to develop its extensive network of tunnels and aquire the weapons necessary to carry out its October attacks because of Iranian funding. For over a decade, Hezbollah was using Iranian money to build terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon, ready for an even more brutal and extensive incursion into Israel than October 7th. The Houthis in Yemen continue firing rockets into Israel on a daily basis curtesy of Iran.

Iran is the head of the snake, hiding like a coward behind its proxies, trying to inflict maximum destruction upon Israel without putting itself on the front line. At some point, Israel was always going to have to go after the source.

Like many Israelis, I haven’t always agreed with our government’s actions and policies in this current war. There are glaring failures that some of our top politicians have consistently failed to take responsibilty for – not least how the events of October 7th could have ever happened in the first place. But despite the concerns I have about Israel’s present government, I fully support the decision to strike Iran.

There’s a widely-held myth in many democratic countries around the world that Iran doesn’t really want to hurt anyone, that it is enriching uranium for purely domestic purposes, just as it claims. Even if it harbors a secret penchant for terror, these dangers can be averted by a tight and comprehensive nuclear deal. War can be prevented through the power of diplomacy.

I am fully in favour of diplomacy and negotiations. Military actions by themselves rarely, if ever, produce real peace. But if anyone thinks that the danger posed by Iran can be averted by skillful conversations, they are living in a fantasy world. That ship has already sailed. After years of threats, saying that it wanted to wipe Israel and America off the map – threats that everyone laughed off as harmless banter – Iran finally took its gloves off and jumped into the boxing ring on October 7th 2023. Yes, it was Hamas that carried out the spree of murders, rapes and abductions, but the hand that was moving these terrosists was Iran. Then Iran added the Houthis and Hezbollah to its deadly war game. The hardcore Islamic Republic that has been governing Iran since 1979 is already at war with the free world. Israel is just the canary in the coal mine – the first country to take a hit.

The other fact that countries in the West need to understand is that the people of Iran themselves are far from united in support of their government. As a community of Messianic Jews and Christian Arabs here in Israel, we regularly get visitors from groups of Iranian Christians, now living in the UK, America or Canada. These groups tell us about the terrible human rights abuses that Christians suffer in Iran. They also tell us that secretly, many Iranians love Israel and want to be set free from their tyrannical government.

Shabnam Assadollahi is one such Iranian Christian. She is human rights advocate, now living in Canada and freely expressing her support for Israel. Last year, she wrote a very insightful piece in the Times of Israel about the growing support for Israel within Iran.

Israel has been very clear during its current military campaign that it is not at war with the people of Iran. It is at war with the group of murderous fanatics that hijacked the country nearly 50 years ago and been ruling over it with an iron fist ever since. Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett reached out to the Iranian people with a video message this morning expressing solidarity.

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It is now evening time. I have been working on this post on and off all day in between making breakfast and lunch for the family, teaching the children, playing games with them, helping them work through their fears and anxieties, and catching up on a few hours of lost sleep. Now, we’re approaching the children’s bedtime. I know it will take time to settle them because they are afraid to go to sleep. In all of our minds, nighttime has become associated with rocket fire.

I am praying that we will have a quiet night tonight. We all need it. But somehow I doubt it will happen. Even as I write these lines, we have had another siren. This time, we didn’t need to spend long in the bomb shelter and I don’t think that any of the incoming missiles made impact.

I still feel like I have a lot to process, and not enough time to think it all through. But I guess that’s not surprising, living in the middle of a warzone!

I am thankful that deep down beneath all the chaos and confusion, and despite all the danger and destruction around us, even now, underneath are the everlasting arms.