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October 14, 2002

A nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, filled with young backpackers - mostly Australian - was horrifically bombed this week, killing nearly 200 and injuring over 300 more.

A cold-blooded sniper is terrorizing the Washington DC area, having killed eight people so far with seemingly no explanation or motive.

These two stories have been all over the news headlines this week. As the death toll rises, terrified people around the world scramble to make some sense of the unfathomable. And nobody knows where the next disaster will strike.

Is it all a coincidence? Are there cause-and-effect explanations of why the world has erupted into a free-for-all for terrorists?  The thing is, I’m starting to feel like we’re all ants under glass, running around in our little anthills but just waiting to see where the next foot will step. There’s no such thing as a “safe place” anymore, and that’s what has people more scared than anything.

Are we nearsighted?  Or just plain stupid? After September 11th, 2001, airport security was supposedly tightened.  Border control procedures were revamped.  Security measures were put in place by the truckloads, all with the goal of ensuring that the exact same thing doesn’t happen again.  But either the supposed experts are assuming that these terrorists have the IQs of turnips, or else they can’t see past their noses. Because why on earth would any terrorist repeat the same plan again?

We can’t predict; we can’t prepare.  Stay away from airplanes and maybe the next target will be a train, or a bus.  Stay away from the US and they’ll strike at Southeast Asia.

The parallel is obvious but I can’t help but draw it again: Israel has been living with this constant fear for years. The same fear that we’re suddenly faced with, now that the illusion of safety in the rest of the world has been shattered.  Maybe it’s time to take a glance over there to see how they deal with it, because G-d knows we could all use a little advice.

I remember going to Israel with Birthright in February of last year, and being told that we were staying in places like Netanya “because it’s safer to stay outside of the cities”. Two months after getting home, Netanya had been the site of several horrible terrorist bombings, including one that killed dozens of people attending a seder on the first night of Passover. Looking at the TV screen, watching ambulances rush away the victims, the only thought running through my head was “I was right there”. I remember talking to my friend who lives in Haifa, being assured by her not to worry because “nothing ever happens here”. Flash forward a couple of years, and Haifa has been the site of numerous attacks on buses, cafes, and malls.

Ironically, people have been avoiding travelling to Israel in the past two years, claiming that it “isn’t safe”.  Lately, it’s starting to seem like nowhere else is much safer.  At least in Israel there are bag checks, equipped security forces, and trained police and rescue personnel to deal with terrorism. I hear that in Bali, they’re nowhere near equipped to deal with the medical fallout of this catastrophe.

So how do they deal with the uncertainty in Israel?  Some are religious, and they pray.  Some are scared, and they leave.  But most take the only approach that makes sense: quite simply, they go on living. After all, life goes on, and Israelis have been living with war and uncertainty since the country was born, and even before that.  Their whole lives, essentially. Their attitude is that “if it’s my turn, then so be it”. Until then, they refuse to let the terrorists win by taking over their lives.  They refuse to surrender their lives to fear. After all, as many have been quoted as saying, there’s a higher chance of dying in a car accident than in a terrorist attack, and people keep driving their cars.

And so, they party a little harder, they eat, drink, smoke, and have a good time.  They throw themselves into the act of living with a fervour rarely seen anyplace else.  It’s an attitude that gives Tel Aviv a great nightlife, but that also seems incredible considering the constant uncertainty that they face.  But the point is, what choice do they really have?  What choice do any of us have?

Israel has been warning the world for years that it is nothing but a testing ground for terrorism, in much the same way that the Spanish Civil War was a testing ground for Hitler’s weapons and military tactics prior to World War II.  Don’t fight it here, they say, and it will spread - to America, to Europe, and to the rest of the world until there’s nobody left to fight.

I sincerely hope they’re wrong.  I hope that New York, Washington, Paris, Yemen, Bali . . . I hope they’re isolated incidents linked only by coincidence.  I hope that none of us in Montreal will ever live in fear of getting on a city bus, going to a nightclub, frequenting a movie theatre or coffee shop or mall.  That’s the kind of fear that nobody should ever have to live with.

Why is it that things need to “hit home” for us to notice? Is the life of a neighbour more valuable than the life of a person on the other side of the world?

It’s time for the world to wake up, in a big way.  People are so self-centered, we don’t recognize trouble until it appears on our shores or our doorsteps. Something happening on the other side of the world can’t possibly affect us, we think.  Not true. Absolutely not true. This is the world’s fight, and most of the world’s countries are burying their heads in the sand.

After the latest wave of mideast violence erupted in September 2000, my parents urged me to cancel my planned trip to Israel.  After September 11th 2001, my they voiced their concern over my planned trip to Europe.  I ignored their advice and went on both trips, and had the best experiences of my life. If, G-d forbid, something were to happen to me tomorrow, I sure wouldn’t want to have not done those two trips.  My life is richer for having gone, and after all, had I stayed home, something could have happened here.  You just never know.

What can we do if not stand up and go on?  Run scared? Hide?  What happens when there’s nowhere left to run to?  No, I say keep your travel plans. Celebrate happy occasions. Live life to the fullest. Go on trying to change things, trying to improve the world.  Because if tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life, it can also be the last, and what good would it do to have regrets over things you’ve failed to accomplish out of fear?

If history teaches us anything, it’s that we can’t make problems go away by ignoring them. We must go on living, go on fighting for what’s right. Or else there will truly be no safe place left in the world.