I slept through my first air-raid siren. I’m still not sure if it’s a testament to exhaustion or evidence of my supernatural ability to fall asleep pretty much anywhere.
As the sirens rang out over Tel Aviv around 2am on December 24 I didn’t wake, not even as my friend banged loudly on my hotel room door. Her phone call finally woke me, though, and as I groggily answered I heard her voice short and curt: Gemma, get up. Get to the shelter. There are sirens.
Strange, the things you remember in those moments. I forgot my door key. I realised as I scurried to the shelter that I was busting to pee, a small but weirdly pressing issue considering the predicament. I remember being grateful that I had deliberately packed proper PJs as a precaution. Given the constant attacks on Israel, I figured this situation might not be out of the question. I decided I didn’t want strangers seeing me in my dad’s old Boston Red Sox T-shirt and a pair of jocks, and threw proper PJs in at the last minute.
That was my first experience of a missile attack; hugely confronting yet also calm and orderly amid the danger and urgency.
Later that day I was reassured that the Houthis who had fired the missiles rarely went two nights in a row. Until of course they did. The next morning, Christmas, around 4.30, sirens rang out and this time I woke instantly. Perhaps I had gone to bed heightened despite my exhaustion. This time it was me banging on the doors of people on my floor urging them to hurry.
We stood around in the shelter. It felt as if time stood still. There was an exhausted mother with her toddler sleeping on her chest, her husband hovering over them. My travel companions. Another hotel guest, lanky, knowing; it was not his first rodeo. A loud explosion echoed through the room from somewhere in the not-so-distant reaches. I flinched. “That was big,” he said. I leaned against the wall, tried to focus on other things, until we were told it was safe to go back to bed. It was close to 5am and we had to be up for a 9am meeting. Life went on. In Israel, it goes on.
What I’ve described happened just a couple of weeks ago. In the six days I was on the ground, the Houthis launched five ballistic missile attacks on Israel from Yemen. The Houthis are homicidal terrorist maniacs who don’t even share a border with Israel but – with their masters in Iran and Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood – do share an ideological hatred of Jews and Israelis more broadly.
Five attacks in one week; one injured six people. The useless and corrupt UN says the Houthis alone have fired more than 200 missiles at Israel in the past 14 months. Last October Iran launched 180 ballistic missiles at Israel and again the world shrugged. Figures from a report by the US State Department show that in 2022 the Israel Defence Forces reported 305 terrorist shooting attacks, triple the number in the previous year.
What I’m trying to do here is build a picture of what it’s like. The volume of attacks, the frequency. This is how Israelis live, under a constant existential threat, and somehow that has been normalised. Somehow, they’ve been told they deserve it: stabbings and shootings of children, the elderly; indiscriminate and all too often.
It’s the same story over and over again; same culprits. Mostly, culprits our government would have you believe want and are ready for statehood.
I remember the Lindt Cafe siege at Martin Place in Sydney in 2014. Who in this country doesn’t? How we mourned the senseless, cruel loss of life. Our nation still bears those scars. That was one event, a decade ago, the impact and ripples still being felt today.
In Israel, they live this multiple times a week. More than 300 terror shootings in a year and then, of course, October 7. Somehow the rest of the world simply expects Israelis to live like this, to cop it sweet, roll over and say: sure, just take whatever you want, kill whoever you want, however you want. Again, I’m trying to bring perspective for those who haven’t experienced what I had a small taste of.
Reading this week about how many Australian Jews feel safer in the Golan Heights than in our country, I understood it. I’ve been to the Golan, stood on the border with Syria. I’ve played a staring game with a Hezbollah guard on an illegal military infrastructure built by terrorists right under the nose of the UN.
I know how close these people are to the maniacs who want to murder them and I understand why they feel safe. It’s about strength in their government’s position, the infrastructure (physical and cultural) to protect them.
It’s true Israel had grown complacent in the years leading up to October 7, 2023. Everyone I spoke to admitted that. They aren’t complacent any more; a brutal, devastating and bloody lesson to learn.
They have steeled themselves to bring every hostage home, living or not, and crush Hamas. We should be thanking them.
Heaven forbid if Australia were under attack. Our federal government would be under the cabinet table clutching a blanky or playing tennis somewhere sunny.
So, yes, I felt safe in Israel too. Like sleeping through an air-raid siren, it makes no sense but it’s true. I had confidence that if something should happen, people around me were (sadly) experienced and equipped to deal with most things including lone terrorists. Safety in strength. Safety that comes from a strong government.
I’m not talking about domestic politics here, please don’t conflate them. I’m talking about a zero-tolerance approach to people who threaten your way of life.
For 14 months we’ve had to tiptoe around as we go about our lives while Australian streets, businesses, universities, and cultural, corporate and sporting events have been overrun by vile, Jew-hating, pro-Palestinian thugs.
What has our government done? Anthony Albanese choosing tennis and beers over the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne tells you. Foreign Minister Penny Wong telling Israel to go gently as terrorists slaughter civilians in their homes set the tone from the outset.
Their actions are marked by appeasement and weakness. The Albanese government lacks strength, which is no surprise when you consider that to act on conviction you actually need to have it.
This past week Ice Hockey Australia announced it was canning an international tournament planned for Melbourne because of fears the Israeli team’s presence could make it too dangerous for players and spectators. Just unpick this for a second. The world now knows we cave in to the bullies.
If only Australia’s position from that ugly moment at the Sydney Opera House on October 9, 2023, had been a firm no. Not here, not in Australia. Instead, we rolled over.
And now, at five minutes to election time, Albanese decides to punt federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus over to Israel for some kind of diplomatic cuddle. Federal MP Julian Leeser’s searing response echoes my own and his words can’t be matched. It’s 14 months too late.
It’s not yet clear if Dreyfus is planning to go to the south and bear witness to the Hamas atrocities, stand among the remnants of slaughter, look survivors in the eyes, hear their words. If he doesn’t, he shouldn’t bother going.
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