Sderot left out of party

Jerusalem celebrates Bush visit, while Sderot continues to be hit by rockets

Ariela Ringel Hoffman|Published: 01.10.08 , 17:13

Wednesday was a festive day, no doubt. It was also a beautiful day, as the President of the United States aptly noted. But what can we say, it was not Sderot’s day.

That is, it was yet another day that was not Sderot’s day: 25 rockets landed on the southern town. It was not a big surprise, as the security establishment warned in advance that Hamas would not be missing out on this opportunity. However, officials in Jerusalem did not let Sderot ruin their party.

Ehud Olmert and Shimon Peres were so excited when they walked the red carpet at the airport with the president. There was great joy and excitement with the children waiting at the Presidential Residence, while numerous words of praise were being thrown around in every direction – 2008, said Peres, is the year of opportunity.

As if he knows something that we do not know, something that nobody knows even in Sderot, which on that day, with the 25 rockets it sustained, was more distant from Jerusalem than ever; alienated, not belonging to the festivities that overwhelmed the capital.

Children from Sderot were not invited to wave flags, sing and dance “Hava Nagila.” Nobody asked them to appear before Israel’s beloved friend, the president of the world’s greatest power.

“It’s not ok that they are letting us live like that,” said Ayelet Dahan from Sderot. She had enough time to grab her baby, the 3-week old Hanania, seconds before the Qassam crashed on their roof and ruined his room. “We are not plants,” she said. “We’re living and breathing people.”

Yet in Sderot they have been living like that for seven years already, and Bush just got here. There is a limit to how much time can be devoted to this exhausting issue.

Nothing new under the sun

True, small lip service was paid to Sderot, tiny lip service that drowned in the sea of mutual compliments. Bush said that attacks on Israel cannot continue like that, and that innocents cannot continue to be hurt like that. Olmert said that Israel is unwilling to accept, and would not tolerate, these ongoing attacks and promised that we shall deploy all means in order to stop them – as if we were talking about some kind of exceptional incident that he and his colleagues will be discussing in a day or two, when the party ends.

Yet when the American president was asked what he thinks should be done with regards to the Qassam rockets being fired from Gaza, he flashed a small smile and said that next to him was a man who sure knows what to do. Sure.

Or in other words, if Sderot residents were waiting for news from Jerusalem, it did not come. Bush did not come either. Neither did Olmert. It is true that one of the residents suggested that “they come here so that they see how we live here” – after all, it was possible to squeeze in a brief visit to Sderot, or at least fly above it in the name of the required solidarity if no more than that can be offered – yet visit organizers had other plans: Watching the Jerusalem sunrise from King David Hotel, a visit to Ramallah, Yad Vashem, and instead of Masada, a visit to Christian sites in the north.

So Bush shall follow the plan, Olmert will continue to lavish praise on him for the next two days, and the people on Sderot can only hope that perhaps after Qassam launchers displayed their abilities on the first day of Bush’s visit, they will be taking a day off. And all the rest will remain the same, nothing is new under the sun.