interview
The shock that followed the Hamas attack remains deep in Israel. Author Ofer Waldman describes how he has lived since then, how the population came together and the difficulty of explaining the atrocities to children.
tagesschau.de: How did you experience the Hamas terrorist attack and the days that followed?
Offer Waldman: We have been in a nightmare since Saturday from which we still haven’t woken up. With each passing hour, the horror becomes more and more unimaginable – with images, with news that destroys the human imagination. With a horror that is not an Israeli, German or Arab horror, but a human horror in the face of this rupture of civilization.
It’s been working ever since. You try to bring order to the world, protect children from this news, prepare your own bunker for any eventuality, collect food for the evacuees, for the reservist units and fight for words to report this to the world.
For 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 a member 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 kids understand this?”
tagesschau.de: Are there people in your environment who have been or are still affected directly or indirectly by the attacks?
Waldman: Israel is a small country, with a small population, and where I live is just 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 reaching out to their loved ones.
So many were kidnapped and even today we do not have the complete 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 one of her best friends’ cousins from school had been killed.
tagesschau.de: Is it possible to make children understand this somehow?
Waldman: How are you supposed to make children understand this? How are we going to make children understand that people living nearby are capable of shooting small children, kidnapping mothers with small children in their arms, shooting elderly people, raping and murdering? I cannot and will not try to explain this to my children. I don’t think this works either.
As a human being, I ask myself: how are such acts part of our world? What words do you find for this? 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. It destroys me with every conversation.
tagesschau.de: It’s hard to imagine talking about this with children.
Waldman: It is clear that the children have realized 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 have been destroyed since Saturday morning can still be saved. Despite the columns of tanks in the streets, despite the fighter planes flying overhead right now, despite the almost tangible heavy atmosphere that surrounds us.
They know there is war. For many, it is not the first war. We live in Israel, but even in this difficult time we try to think about the next day. And I’m very proud of my children. My eldest daughter asked: what about the children in Gaza?
“We try to adapt to everything”
tagesschau.de: His home near Haifa is close to the border with Lebanon, where attacks have also occurred. How do you deal with this and what can you do in this situation?
Waldman: On Saturday morning, it quickly became clear that things threatened to get worse in the north as well. We then placed food, water bottles and batteries in the bunker. My desk is also there so 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 US. The US President strongly supported 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’m not a military expert. I don’t know if there will be a land offensive or not. Everyone expects that. But it seems that the government is still struggling with what is incomprehensible to the population on the fifth day of war. Despite the call for political unity, people still use tactics and don’t 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 young children and elderly 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 this land offensive? We learned nothing and forgot that we had already been to the Gaza Strip. What did it bring – besides more deaths and more suffering – to the civilian population on the Israeli side and also on the Palestinian side?
tagesschau.de: I hear in your words a strong skepticism regarding such a measure.
Waldman: We are in war. Hamas declared war. The Israeli government has now made an official declaration of a state of war. This departure into a new and brutal world, which surpasses even the achievements of IS, obviously demands a response. We are in the Middle East. You cannot show weakness here. And war is war.
But what we do today will also determine the day after war. And I hope that, despite all the support and all the anger, people will also think about this day afterwards. Hamas is sentenced to death, which is obviously what they want and have decided with their own actions. But not the Palestinian people, nor the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.
“Now Israeli society is united”
tagesschau.de: In recent months there has been a deep division in society due to the dispute over the government’s planned judicial reform. In his opinion, did this play a role in the attacks now and has the divide been overcome at this point?
Waldman: Some of these are questions that cannot yet be clarified in the fog of war. There is also the question of the responsibility of Hamas for being able to attack in this way. How could this happen? It is clear that Israel was divided as never before. Perhaps this was the reason for the attack.
But now Israeli society is united. The protest movement’s networks are being used to raise aid for evacuees, including reserve soldiers. Israel was obviously underestimated. But this unity does not apply to the government, because it is occupied 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 traders who also bring food to 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 enjoy an excellent international reputation. And then this weekend arrived. Has this shaken public confidence in the security services?
Waldman: Some of these are also issues that can only be discussed after the fighting has ended. But they torment us all. How could this happen? Normally, no fly can move near the border without becoming aware of it. And now we are talking about more than 1,500 terrorists who have crossed the border. By the way, these are not freedom fighters, but beasts who said goodbye to human society.
Of course, the question now is why the intelligence 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 elsewhere. Why political?
We also wonder whether clashes between the settlers, who are receiving a lot of support from this government, and the Palestinians in the West Bank were the reason the Israeli army became distracted and disappeared from the Gaza border. These are painful questions that will hopefully all be clarified after the fighting ends.
“Silence weighs a lot”
tagesschau.de: What do you expect from Germany and the EU now?
Waldman: The many solidarity actions in Germany are moving. But the images of Palestinians applauding in Berlin-Neukölln, my old neighborhood, are more than painful. They are disgusting. The silence of Palestinian friends, companions and activists who pursue the legitimate objective of an independent Palestine weighs heavily and also overshadows the following day.
Regarding Germany’s solidarity: we read that Germany and the EU are considering freezing aid funds for the Palestinians. Despite all the righteous anger, care must be taken not to target 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 bereaved and pain-filled people.
The interview was conducted by Eckart Aretz, tagesschau.de