c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) I recently visited Israel as part of a four-day, 120-person Solidarity Mission sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. We visited three weeks after the United Nations cease fire went into effect with Lebanon. AJC representatives joined with U.S. Christian leaders, Per Ahlmark, a former deputy prime minister of Sweden, and Jewish participants from Europe, South America, and Canada.

The trip was a sobering, but ultimately exhilarating experience.

Because the town of Safed _ located a few miles south of Lebanon _ was the birthplace of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical religious teachings, it is one of Judaism’s four Holy Cities.

But when we met Dr. Oscar Embon, the director of Safed’s Hospital, Kabbalah was not on his mind. The facility with its 180 physicians and staff serves all of the Galilee region, including Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Druze.

Captured documents reveal that Iran-backed Hezbollah specifically targeted the hospital for Katyusha rocket attacks, and, indeed, the building was hit even as its staff was treating 687 injured civilians and the 820 wounded Israeli soldiers evacuated from the Lebanese battle ground. Sadly, 471 rockets struck Safed, city of religious dreamers and rabbinic poets.

After initially criticizing Israel for its attacks in Lebanon, this week Amnesty International charged Hezbollah with war crimes because the terrorist group made “deliberate attacks on civilians” and committed “serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

After Safed, we traveled north to Kfar Giladi, and stood in a parking lot where a Hezbollah rocket instantly killed 12 Israeli soldiers on Aug. 6. Charred wood remained on the ground and the Kaddish prayer recited in memory of the dead evoked tears from many in our group.

Kiryat Shemona, the best-known northern Israeli city, has endured thousands of rocket attacks for decades, first from the Palestine Liberation Organization and more recently from Hezbollah. Some of Kiryat Shemona’s 25,000 residents temporarily moved south out of range of the Katyushas. But for those who remained, the 33-day war was a harrowing experience.

Because Hezbollah launched rockets in large clusters a few miles from Kiryat Shemona, the warning time before the Katyushas exploded was about 30 seconds. As a result, thousands of residents spent long days and nights in stifling bomb shelters. I wonder what thoughts, fears, and anger ran through the minds of residents who never knew whether the next 30 seconds of their lives might be their last.

The shelter we visited still reeked of urine and feces when we entered. I saw half-consumed orange juice containers, children’s toys, and other vivid reminders that only a few weeks earlier the cramped shelter was filled with families seeking protection from random rockets.

Because they’re easy to mount and fire, Katyushas are difficult to stop, and Hezbollah fired 3,970 rockets into northern Israel. Military officers stress that Katyushas are “purely weapons of terror.” Fortunately, the Israel Air Force destroyed over 150 long-range missile launchers during the war’s first two days.

Col. Miri Eisin, an intelligence officer, was Israel’s wartime face and voice on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and the BBC. She said she “was involved in two separate wars.” The first was personal, involving her husband serving in the Israel Defense Forces and their children. “It was something every Israeli family experienced.”

The second war was her encounter with the international news media. Eisin was surprised to discover that when she appeared on TV to defend her country’s right to self-defense from Hezbollah attacks, the visual background sometimes featured doctored images showing the damage inside Lebanon.

No wonder viewers often received distorted and even dishonest messages about the conflict. Eisin ruefully noted that “graphic visuals always trump the human voice.” As usual, truth is frequently the first casualty of war.

While humor is a staple of both Jewish and Israeli life, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told us “Israel doesn’t have a sense of humor” when its soldiers are killed or abducted, its civilians attacked, and its national security threatened.

Israel, unlike its neighbors, is a fully functioning democracy, and the self-criticism currently taking place following the war will only benefit the nation. I am certain Israel will learn the proper lessons from this conflict and emerge even stronger.

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is the author of the recently published book “The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us.”)

KRE/CM END RUDIN

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