separated..

we all knew it would happen..
its the essential ingredient to this madness..
but last night it finally did..
in a fierce dispute while watching the news sanity left the house completely defeated and paranoia slept diagonally across the bed..

i used to require my kids to let me walk on the road side of the footpath to buffer their access - theyre only little..
now i do it out of concern that a terrorist might purposely run us over - this way (i delude myself) i can try to push them out of harms way if i have to..
i used to look both ways before crossing the road..
now im looking all around even while sitting..

dropping off the girls used to be a fun a happy event..
now its filtered by locked gates and security codes..
now its burdened by excessive precaution and concern..
now its a chore that torments me completely - is it really irresponsible to walk the 700m that we need to walk? does it really make sense to drive?

on my way home - i walked past a fence..
i imagined climbing up it quickly if any car chose to aim my way..
i used to love the noise and clamour of the markets in the morning..
now all i hear is the crickets - i didnt know we had any in yaffo.. since when do markets have crickets..

watching the hollow alleyways..
i try to convince myself that its just early..
noting the smile free faces drive past..
i tell myself those people are just tired..

why is everyone listening to the news so loudly..
back at home i can hear a radio outside even through my tripple glazed windows..
7 dead.. so and so wounded.. the stats begin to blur..
as paranoia makes itself comfortable..

its feels like this time sanity has left for good..

hebrew and arabic juxtaposed..

all we here these days is arabs yelling allahu akbar and jews screaming that a terrorist attack has occurred.. hebrew and arabic should really however sound more like this when the two languages are juxtaposed..

the cage..

WARNING: Graphic contentThis morning, a terrorist went on a violent rampage in Jerusalem with a vehicle and a butcher's knife. This is the danger we face. This is the result of Palestinian incitement.
Posted by Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday, 13 October 2015

i cant even begin to imagine the level of insanity that leads someone to run over innocent people.. and then for their leaders to have the audacity to say that theyre not against us - its just that they don't like the government.. like running over someone and stabbing someone else afterwards is going to change the government.. what a load of rubbish.. the palestinians will no doubt show this video as jewish terror of an innocent driver who simply lost control of his car and innocently repeatedly stabbed some guy who must have been the malicious jew who distracted him from focusing on the road.. or something like that..

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today i walked across the almost completely dormant flea markets to pick up our girls who go to kindy just over the other side of the markets with a metal bar that i conveniently tucked into the fold of the stroller's awning.. i appointed it to be our defender in case we were attacked by a terrorist.. feels odd even typing it..

while picking them up i saw all the cute kids that share the day with each of our daughters and their lovely parents.. most jewish but quite a few arabs too.. our daughters dont know what jew and arab means yet - they play with whoever is funniest that day.. yaffo is wonderfully mixed that way which is why we like living here.. a new immigrant who didn't speak Hebrew approached me as we were leaving to find out how to register her daughter at that daycare centre.. she looked around and lowered her voice and whispered: "do arabs send their kids here?"

i told her that some did but assured her that everyone was really nice.. i was offended by her question instinctively but i assumed she was simply ignorant of our tradition of co-existence.. i gave her all the info she needed and then i left..

as we walked home i held up the usual chit chat with the girls - you know - look at the cat look at the bird stop at the kerb look where youre going.. but my eyes were constantly looking around for suspicious people.. and my hand was ready to grab the bar in defence..

there was one suspicious person who walked past oddly i thought - as i mentally clung on to the stereotypical nuances that differentiate jews and arabs in Israel with my hand poised to clutch the bar and swing at what might be a knife if i had to.. but of course that scenario never matured into anything beyond my newfound torment..

and here is the most horrible part of terror - youre chances of dying constantly remain below that of a pedestrian being involved in an innocent car accident (note my choice of words) in a western country.. the potential of which any of us would discard on a daily basis without hesitation.. but something about the evil of terror makes it so absorbing that suddenly 100s of merchants in one of telaviv's finest retail villages are stranded without patrons and they will struggle to pay bills and wages this month and it doesn't matter that the risk is essentially low.. suddenly a whole community is brought to a stand still.. suddenly a whole country shuts down..

in Israel we have a long dry summer every year - and every first rain  people die on the roads like human sacrifices to the incoming winter.. death is a certainty on the roads on those days and it is unavoidable.. or so it seems.. and yet no one stops shopping or going out or driving..

but terror doesn't just cage you in physically - it cages you mentally with all rationalisation set aside..

it is really so sad.. people dying and people bleeding and people living in fear and next people will go hungry and there is always the risk that while in the cage of this insanity people get so caught up in the cycle that they dont even really know why its happening - theyre simply upholding their so called right to react to the injustice they perceive was inflicted upon them..