interview
The shock following the Hamas attack remains deep in Israel. Author Ofer Waldman describes how he has experienced the days since, how the population has come together and the difficulty of explaining the atrocities to children.
tagesschau.de: How did you experience the attack by the Hamas terrorists and the days after it?
Ofer Waldman: We’ve been in a nightmare since Saturday that we still haven’t woken up from. With each passing hour, the horror has become more and more unimaginable – with images, with news that shatter the human imagination. With a horror that is not Israeli or German or Arab horror, but rather a human horror at this breach of civilization.
It’s been working since then. You try to bring order to the world, protect the children from this news, get your own bunker ready for any eventuality, collect food for the evacuees, for the reservist units and struggle for words to report it to the world .
To person
Ofer Waldman lives near Haifa and is an author, journalist and consultant for non-governmental organizations. He first came to Germany in 1999 as a musician and was part of renowned orchestras as a horn player until 2014. His volume of short stories “Singularkollektiv. Stories” will be published in 2023.
“How do you make children understand this?”
tagesschau.de: Are there people in your environment who were or are still affected directly or indirectly by the attacks?
Waldman: Israel is a small country with a small population, and the place where I live is only 140 kilometers from the Gaza Strip. Since Saturday morning there have been increasing reports of horror reports about fallen relatives of friends. You also see it on social media, you see people looking for their loved ones.
So many were kidnapped and even today we still don’t have the whole picture of who was murdered and who was kidnapped. Just yesterday my wife and I were trying to talk to our daughter about the fact that the cousin of one of her best friends from school had been killed.
tagesschau.de: Is it possible to make children understand this in any way?
Waldman: How should you make children understand this? How are we supposed to make children understand that people who live in close proximity are capable of shooting small children, abducting mothers with small children in their arms, shooting old people, raping and murdering? I can’t and won’t even try to explain this to my children. I don’t think that works either.
As a human being, I ask myself, how can it be that such acts are part of our world? What words do you find for it? I sit and cry after every interview because our world has collapsed and I can’t imagine a future world. But you have to report it. This tears me apart with every conversation.
tagesschau.de: It’s hard to imagine talking about this with children.
Waldman: Of course, the children have noticed since Saturday morning how tense the situation is. You can see it on our faces. You try to give them the feeling that at least parts of the world that has been shattered since Saturday morning can still be saved. Despite the columns of tanks on the streets, despite the fighter planes flying over our heads at this moment, despite the almost tangible heavy atmosphere around us.
They know there is war. For many it is not the first war. We live in Israel, but even in this difficult hour we try to think about the day after. And I’m really proud of my children. My older daughter asked, what about the children in Gaza?
“We try to adapt to everything”
tagesschau.de: Her home near Haifa is close to the border with Lebanon, from where there have also been attacks. How do you deal with this and what can you do in this situation?
Waldman: On Saturday morning it quickly became clear that things were threatening to escalate in the north too. We then put food, water bottles and batteries in the bunker. My desk is also there so that I can continue writing even in crisis situations. We try to adapt to everything.
However, in contrast to our incompetent political leadership, we see strong political leadership from the USA. The US President has strongly sided with Israel and sent aircraft carriers to our region as a clear signal to Israel’s other enemies. The message is: Don’t you dare take advantage of Israel’s current weakness.
“What do you want to achieve with a ground offensive?”
tagesschau.de: The Israeli army has called up more than 300,000 reservists. Do you expect there to be a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip?
Waldman: I am not a military expert. I don’t know whether there will be a ground offensive or not. Everyone expects it. But it seems that the government is still struggling with what is incomprehensible to the population on the fifth day of the war. Despite the call for political unity, people are still using tactics and do not seem to understand what has just happened.
And of course there is also the question of what will happen to the more than 100 Israelis, some small children and old people, who were abducted and are now in the Gaza Strip in the event of a ground offensive. And what do you want to achieve with such a ground offensive? We didn’t learn anything and we forgot that we had already been to the Gaza Strip. What did it bring – apart from more deaths and more suffering – for the civilian population on the Israeli side and also on the Palestinian side?
tagesschau.de: I hear in your words a strong skepticism about such a step.
Waldman: We are at war. Hamas has declared war. The Israeli government has now made an official declaration of a state of war. This departure into a new, brutal world, which surpasses even the deeds of IS, of course requires an answer. We are in the Middle East. You can’t show weakness here. And war is war.
But what we do today will also determine the day after the war. And it is my hope that despite all the support and all the anger, people will also think about this day afterward. Hamas is doomed to death, which is what they obviously want and have decided with their own actions. But not the Palestinian people, not the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
“Now Israeli society is united”
tagesschau.de: In recent months there has been a deep division in society over the dispute over the government’s planned judicial reform. In your opinion, has this played a role in the attacks now and has the division been overcome for the moment?
Waldman: Some of these are questions that cannot yet be clarified in the fog of war. There is also the question of responsibility for Hamas being able to attack like this. How could that happen? It is clear that Israel was divided like never before. Maybe that was the reason for the attack.
But now Israeli society is united. The networks of the protest movement are being used to collect help for the evacuees, including soldiers in the reserve. Israel has obviously been underestimated. But this unity does not apply to the government, because it is busy with itself.
And when I say that Israeli society is now united, I mean Jewish and Arab Israelis. Here in the north we see Arab shopkeepers who also bring food to the evacuees from the border region with the Gaza Strip. There is a spirit of solidarity in Israel that is independent of the government.
“People ask where the army was”
tagesschau.de: The Israeli security services have an excellent international reputation. And then this weekend came. Has this shaken the public’s trust in the security services?
Waldman: Some of these are also questions that can only be discussed after the fighting has ended. But they gnaw at us all. How could that happen? Normally no fly can move near the border without getting wind of it. And now we’re talking about more than 1,500 terrorists who have crossed the border. By the way, these are not freedom fighters, but rather beasts who have said goodbye to human society.
Of course, the question now is why the secret services were apparently blind to these developments, to the preparations that were being made not only in the Gaza Strip, but also elsewhere by Israel’s other enemies. It also asks where the army was after the attack began. She was obviously busy somewhere else. For what political reason?
One also wonders whether the clashes between the settlers, who are getting a lot of support from this government, and the Palestinians in the West Bank were the reason why the Israeli army was distracted and why it was missing from the Gaza border. These are painful questions that will hopefully all be clarified after the fighting ends.
“The silence weighs heavily”
tagesschau.de: What do you now hope for from Germany and the EU?
Waldman: The many solidarity actions in Germany are moving. But the images of cheering Palestinians from Berlin-Neukölln, my former neighborhood, are more than painful. They are disgusting. The silence of Palestinian friends, companions and activists who pursue the legitimate goal of an independent Palestine weighs heavily and also overshadows the day after.
As far as Germany’s solidarity is concerned: we read that Germany and the EU are considering freezing aid funds for the Palestinians. Despite all the justified anger, one must be careful not to hit the Palestinian civil society, which is actually trying to build a peaceful Palestine. It should be solidarity with Israel, not against anything. There is much that can be done now to strengthen Israeli society and to support the grieving, pain-filled people.
The interview was conducted by Eckart Aretz, tagesschau.de