Bomb shelter questions, 2015

Say, dad, when the Syrian president wanted to talk peace, why did we laugh in his face? It's true, he wasn't cool like his daddy, and was also, how shall we say it, an enemy. But we always said that peace is made with enemies, no? Maybe if we would have spoken to him, we could have prevented the next war…don't you think?

After all, what did we have to lose? At most, we'd see it's a manipulation, that he isn't serious, and expose his true face to the world. The Americans would have voiced their dissatisfaction? That's not so bad. Any country would have been overjoyed to host such peace talks, where the price has been known since the end of the 1990s. We would have finished up the northern front in one stroke, without one person dying.

So the peace would have been a little cold, so what? Is our peace with Egypt similar to a Turkish bathhouse? After all, we have a historical example of people who only say "no." They used to be called "The Arabs of Palestine," and they foolishly rejected a proposal to divide the country in 1947 and went to war. You remember how it ended, right?

Say, dad, when the radicals from Hamas took power in the Palestinian Authority, why didn't we do more to negotiate with Abbas? After all, finally there was a sane, moderate and responsible voice on the Palestinian side. So what did we do? We led a loud campaign against the "Hamas Authority" across the world, we disconnected them from funding and supplies, and forgot that there was another side too, that was only weakened by that.

After millions of civilians slowly went hungry and became haters and avid Hamas supporters, finally one day we decided to do something and meet, law and behold, with Abbas, but it was too late. The mess, civil war, and anarchy took over and boiled over to us too. And then came the good guys of al-Qaeda and finished it off.

Did anyone even care about the kids?

Say, dad, when kids in Sderot and the Negev were bombarded every day with rockets, why didn't we do anything to help them? How could it be that all our prime ministers only spew forth clichés, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad continued to fire at Israeli children, as if nothing was happening? Did anyone even care about these kids, or were they a little too dark-skinned and too southern for the tastes of decision-makers?

Wait, I don't get it: After all, the defense minister was also from Sderot. So he did nothing? He showed restraint? How could it be that the scandal of fortifying Gaza-region communities continued year after year, while the soul of these people was burning in daily anxiety? How come that nobody simply explained to the prime minister that a country where one child goes to school under the constant threat of fire cannot survive? That a government that fails in upholding the most basic clause in the convention with its citizens – to protect them – must go home?

Say, dad, when the Iranians announced loudly and clearly that they will be wiping us off the face of this earth and started to build an atomic bomb, why didn't we do anything?

I read that first we waited for the Americans, and after they said they won't be doing a thing, we moved to a general scare campaign regarding the nuclear arms we "don't have." Then we explained with an air of gravity that they have "serious technical problems" in building a bomb, and made fun of them for being Holocaust-deniers and anti-Semites.

At the end we had experts from IDF intelligence and the security establishment who came and coolly explained to us that it will take many years for the Iranians to have a bomb. And then they finished building it. The ceremony in downtown Teheran was impressive, but we confidently said that he's only showing off, and that they still don’t have "launch capabilities" for a bomb, and the military intelligence chief promised…promised that it will be many years…that is, this screw is not yet ready…

Say, dad, can we come out of the bomb shelter already?