An Israeli journalist prepares to fight, David Bender

Wed, 10 Sep 2003 23:00:00 +0000

August 2001

Shayna, Pria, and Shmaya, eight-and-a-half year-old triplets on the tail end of summer vacation, strolled past the Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem not long before a Palestinian suicide bomber walked into the restaurant, packed with noontime diners. Pressing a concealed button on a ten-kilogram charge, the terrorist slaughtered fifteen Israelis and tourists and wounded over 130 in a devastating attack. The children, together with their mother and her infant twins were on a bus making their way home as scores of local and international correspondents rushed downtown in the wake of the blast that ripped through the heart of Jerusalem just after 2 pm.

Sappers, wrapped in green body-armour, quickly darted around vehicles outside the restaurant, suddenly so quiet in the wake of the flash of light and supersonic blast. Detonating three charges in controlled explosions, they destroyed suspicious parcels thought to be booby-trapped. Bearded observant Jews, clad in white disposable jump suits and gloves, carefully mopped up blood off the pavement and sections of the now crazed-glass windows of the restaurant, still lying, shattered but whole, across the middle of the intersection.

Scraping up bits of flesh and bone off traffic lights, street-signs and storefronts lining the intersection, dedicated ‘ZaKa’ (Zihui Korbanot Ason) Victim Identification Unit volunteers meticulously winnowed out the shards of shrapnel, separating them from the human remains, carefully placing the latter into white plastic bags for burial. Jewish law requires the dead be buried as whole as possible.

As I interviewed shaken, disorientated survivors and other pedestrians who had been in the area of the explosion, I was not aware that the triplets – my own children – had passed by ground zero just before the attack. Shayna, like many of Jerusalem’s residents, has been sleeping poorly since the attack. She seems the most deeply affected of the trio. I believe she understands, in an inchoate, confused way, just how close they all were to the dynamite and nail-laden satchel. Shmaya, diffident and quiet, prefers to talk about the upcoming baseball season with his little league team. Pria, the most verbally adept of the three, still manages to run out of words to explain how she feels about what Israelis have coined ‘the situation’.

Your country needs you

The call comes at 1:30 am Thursday morning. I shuffle out of bed and answer the ringing cellphone. “Is this David Bender?” the young female voice on the other end of the line asks brusquely. “Yes”, I reply, amid growing awareness that this is my army reserve unit’s liaison office. My concern rises to the surface. “This is a tzav-8 call-up. You need to arrive at the base by 9:00 am”, she says, asking if I understand the instructions and other pertinent details.

I mumble my assent. Stunned, I tell my now-awake wife that no, this isn’t a drill and that no, they aren’t kidding. In a rush of confusion and inchoate fear, I drag down the dusty, readied backpack from the crawlspace over the bathroom, mentally going over the list of needed last-minute supplies. Later, deep into the night, my wife helps me finish packing the bag. We both finally comprehend that I am Gaza bound, and though uncertain, likely en route to harms way.

The last night at home. Pre-departure tension as I sit alone in the living room, an assortment of camping gear and military odds and ends arrayed on the floor around me. Ritually wondering to myself: “Now, why did I agree to do this again?”; knowing all along I’ll probably dump about a third of the cargo back out later near the foot of the bed by my annoyed and formerly-sleeping wife, because everything I really wanted to lug along is just too damn heavy to cram into one backpack. Finally, on that last night, holding each other in the dark before she is replaced by a lonely, worn sleeping-bag and tools of war.

Band of brothers

Our unit boasts an array of hi-tech entrepreneurs, programmers and engineers; taxi and bus drivers; hotel pastry chefs; furniture designers; shopkeepers; yeshiva and higher-education teachers and students; doctors and lawyers; a few guys “currently between positions”; businessmen; the radically religious and even more radically secular; with political opinions covering most of the Israeli spectrum. Oh, yeah, and one editor too.

Yair, 46, lanky and bald, is an Eilat resident. Blessed with a wacky sense of humour, he’s a freelance philosopher, a sometime fisherman, and always busy preparing a pot of fresh boiled coffee. The sort of guy found beachside at Eilat resorts proffering you a beer and hand of gin rummy at a sand-floored bar. Yair is too old for this kind of nonsense, and often enjoys ticking off the officers. But, offbeat, bohemian, and well over mandatory enlistment age, he still volunteers yearly and is a good, though unconventional soldier.

Boaz Karchmer, 39, tall with black curly hair, an immigrant from Mexico City, is coming up on 20 years in Israel. He lives in the upscale suburban community of Meitar, near Be’ersheba. Boaz has served in the unit for twelve years since completing a four-month Shlav Bet enlisted stint for older new immigrants. Now married to a native Israeli and father of three children, he works for Motorola in Arad.

Boaz is the non-commissioned battery commander of a 120mm howitzer-towed artillery gun. When I asked what keeps him in active reserve duty, he said: “I think it’s the minimum I can do for the country that gave me so much. You cannot really be an Israeli without being here. There are so many people in this country who don’t do reserve duty, religious and secular, young and old.”

It would have been easy for Boaz to find a way to avoid these manoeuvres. When I reply that there are a lot of people who’d argue with his view, he says, “Someone has to do something to stand up to whatever will be.” I ask him if he thinks the conflict with the Palestinians is worsening. “Worse?” he retorts. “I don’t think it can get any worse than it is now. But the biggest problems are not with the Palestinians, I think the biggest problems are with the countries around us. If the problems with the Palestinians remain, I think it can result in a large war with our neighbours – that’s the problem.” I ask if he or his wife ever consider leaving Israel. “No,” he says, shrugging his shoulders with a wry grin.

Benny arrived from Aleppo, Syria, five years ago. Most of his family went straight to electronics and discount shops in Brooklyn, while he came south to Israel. Benny serves as a policeman in Jaffa.

This time out he brings along the fixings to cook up savoury homemade humous and ful (lima beans) right off the back of the artillery transporter. He says it’s to make up for the army cuisine. The guys in Benny’s crew swear one of his portions was worth at least three days of official tinned field rations. A barrel-chested, salt-of-the-earth sort of guy always ready with a big laugh and a slap on the back, Benny has the kind of farm-boy build that allows him to heft thirty-kilogram artillery shells with two fingers curled through a small metal carrying ring welded to the end. I’m glad he’s on our side.

Paul, 29, an immigrant from Lima, Peru, has lived in Israel for five-and-a-half years and is engaged to be married. A high-tech Tel Aviv entrepreneur, Paul is involved in an internet start-up company offering specialty photography for websites.

“I came to Israel like a lot of folks trying to find a place to live with Jewish people,” he said. Paul finds reserve manoeuvres difficult, “but you find friends and it’s a good experience. You learn. You feel that you are a part of this country.” Reserve duty “puts you more inside the country,” he said. “You feel that you can defend your nation if a war breaks out.” But he said he wasn’t too concerned about the prospect of hostilities for the time being.

“Is it difficult to leave your business behind, trekking out to the desert?” I asked Paul. “Yeah, it’s very difficult. Sometimes you ask for permission not to be called up. This time they didn’t give it, so I came”.

“What will you take with you back to civilian life?” “I think it’s an experience ... that reminds me a lot of youth movement activities back in Peru.” “... But without having to lift heavy guns in sub-zero weather and rain,” I finished his sentence. He laughed.

That night, while in classrooms studying bed sheet-sized aerial area photographs, we receive initial mission assignments. Our battalion commander assembles the by now weary troops beneath a streetlamp, just before lights out, and sums up our preparations. He prides us on our show-rate, speed of arrival and organisation, and our willingness to take up arms for the nation’s defence.

There are no big words about glory and battlefield valour. Instead, a quiet man responsible for the life and death of soldiers under his command and the Palestinian civilians they are to encounter, talks about the Biblical concept of “purity of arms”, and the Israeli army’s code of battlefield ethics. “I don’t want to hear about anyone slapping around handcuffed and blindfolded prisoners,” he warns us. He then asks if any soldier is uncertain of his willingness to carry out the mission and go into combat.

A chill runs through me as his words evoke Moses’ call in the book of Deuteronomy to the warriors of Israel: “And the officers shall continue to speak to the people and say, ‘What man is there who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, that he should not cause the heart of his brothers to melt, as his heart’.”

“On the battlefield, uncertainty reigns,” he reminds us, adding that events at ground level could change from minute to minute. We would soon discover the accuracy of those words.

The reign of uncertainty

Helmet strap cinched tight and wearing full infantry webbing, I slap a live ammo clip into my M-16 rifle, release the safety-catch and ready myself for the solo assault tactic. Go! The officer standing behind me shouts. I raise my gun, aim and fire. Run several feet, slow – and dragging one foot for stability – fire again. Run, drag, shoot. Run, drag, shoot. I throw myself on the stony ground; take cover, aim and fire again. Picking off the targets in several brief volleys, I rise again to repeat the manoeuvre, a second and yet a third time. Heart pounding, breathless and sweating, I complete the manoeuvre. My officer slaps me on the back, congratulating me on a successful run. The target was peppered with bullet-holes.

I take off my helmet, musing over the sterility of the manoeuvre compared to real battle, when bullets fly both ways. Another brush with the kingdom of uncertainty. Someone’s cellphone rings, the caller saying the battery commander is urgently needed for a parley with senior officers. Rumours about the operation run riot through the unit. He returns a few minutes later to tell us: The operation has been called off; we can pack and return home.

No refuge from reality

“The Arab grown-ups have no lev (heart): they put their children, instead of themselves, out in front of soldiers”, Shayna observed the other evening, as I spoke with her about the complex security situation. “Why does the whole world hate the Israelis?” she asked, uncomprehending of the twisted forces adults in this part of the world deal with on a daily basis. On another occasion, on an evening drive with Pria, she turned to me after listening to the radio newscast: “Abba, How long will this go on? I mean the terrorists…will it last as long as the shoah (Holocaust)?” Tough question from an eight-and-a-half year-old.

A version of this articlewas published at http://mister_d1.tripod.com

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An Israeli journalist prepares to fight, David Bender