The twentieth anniversary of the first Gulf War sent me back to a war diary I published in the Jewish Observer. The diary rekindled lots of memories. Failing to realize that we had forgotten to bring the baby into the sealed room during the first missile attack until our older kids started screaming was mortifying at the time but elicits a smile at the distance of twenty years.

Other memories are more precious — for instance our children spontaneously dancing in a circle after coming out of the sealed room for the first time on the first Shabbos of the war. How could I have forgotten that?

One thing I did not forget was my eight-year-old daughter saying that leil Shabbos “Saddam Hussein is trying to make us be mechallel Shabbos so that we have fewer merits to protect us. But what he doesn’t know” she quickly added “is that for pikuach nefesh it’s a mitzvah.” 

But mostly the diary left me astounded by how little I recall of the emotional intensity of those weeks.

“Talk of Mashiach is in the air” I wrote. “Every cheder yingel can quote the Malbim on Daniel 2:45 describing the war of Gog and Magog. To my ‘How are you?’ an acquaintance responds ‘Tzipisa L’Mashiach [anticipating the Mashiach] and then adds ominously: Any period with potential for Mashiach also contains within the potential for great calamity.’

“Rav Moshe Shapira begins his weekly shiur for Parshas Va’eira explicating Hashem’s answer to Moshe Rabbeinu’s question: ‘Why have you brought evil on the people?’ Hashem responds ‘I never appeared to Avraham Yitzchak and Yaakov except as Keil Shakai ... —’ i.e. they never experienced the fulfillment of the Divine promises. Hashem was teaching Moshe Rabbeinu Rav Moshe explains that only because the Avos believed totally in the fulfillment of those promises will Moshe now witness all the wonders to be wrought in Egypt and will the Jewish People be redeemed from Egypt. The Avos set the pattern for us: Our belief in the coming of Mashiach is the precondition for his arrival. As Rav Moshe speaks I suddenly realize that every shiur for months has revolved around this subject.

“A week before the war breaks out Rav Shlomo Wolbe zt”l givse a shmuess in Mirrer Yeshivah. Word of his talk spreads quickly through the yeshivah world. He speaks of the special level of Divine Protection present in Eretz Yisrael but again with a caveat: One must be worthy to live in Eretz Yisrael. He describes the miracles witnessed during each war and the baalei teshuvah produced and predicts that it will be no different this time.”

Reading again of those miracles I start to feel depressed by how little I remember.

“Looking at the photos of the first night’s destruction the word ‘miracle’ flashes like a neon sign. Entire buildings collapsed over a thousand apartments were damaged and only seventeen people were lightly injured. A secular journalist writes ‘$$separate quotes$$“Miracle” is too small a word to describe the fine line between the bloody massacre that might have taken place and the small numbers of those actually wounded.’ Hundreds of residents of one apartment building rushed to the largest air raid shelter in the area only to find it locked. Instead they crowded into a smaller shelter nearby. Minutes later the large shelter took a direct hit from a missile and was demolished.

“Nonreligious residents of upscale Savyon approach the local rav and tell him ‘We want to thank Hashem but we don’t know how.’ President Chaim Herzog addresses the nation ‘The Jewish nation has experienced miracles throughout its history starting with the miracle of the Splitting of the Sea.... Today we are seeing that others are doing our job for us — a miracle the Hand of Providence which has always stood at our side.’$$separate quotes$$”

The lessons practically slapped you across the face. Prior to the arrival of Patriot anti-missile batteries no Israeli was killed despite as many as five missiles at a time hitting heavily populated areas. The first fatality occurs when a missile intercepted by a Patriot falls to the ground. And it turns out that our hishtadlus is as likely to hurt as help. Only one Jew (the organizer of anti-Shabbos demonstrations) was killed by a missile; seven suffocated from defective gas masks.

Yet already by the third week of the war entry into the sealed room had become a perfunctory drill:

“Gone is the terror but with it goes the intense identification with every other Jew in Eretz Yisrael. Going back to sleep after one early-morning siren I realize that I did not stay awake to hear the news from the rest of the country or say Tehillim for those who might still be in danger. Already by the fourth week my principal fear is that nothing will remain of all that Hashem has revealed to us and the opportunity to draw close to Him and makes ourselves worthy of Redemption that He has provided.”

Twenty years later my fears have been fully realized. Even the maidservant at the Sea saw what was not revealed to Yechezkel ben Buzi. Yet without preparation and the tools to hold on to the vision she remained a maidservant. So it is with us.

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Leo Rennert writing in American Thinker provides a succinct illustration of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict completely distorts reality. All he did was list the stories that failed to make it into the New York Times (“All the news fit to print”) and the Washington Post in a single week.

Absent were major headlines that show that Palestinian attitudes — not Israeli settlements — explain the failure to achieve a viable peace agreement. For instance: Dec. 30 – “Poll: Solid Majorities of Palestinians Oppose Two-State Solution Along Clinton Parameters”; Dec. 25 – “Hamas Ultimatum: Israel Has Two Options — Death or Leaving Palestinian Lands”; Dec. 25 – “Abbas Aims for “Judenrein” Palestinian State — No room for a single Israeli.”

In the same vein nothing of the constant incitement against Israel and Jews in the Palestinian media must leak out: Dec. 25 – “Palestinian Authority TV Claims Jesus was a Palestinian Denies his Jewish Ancestry.”

The twin pillars of American journalism both chose to ignore stories reflecting on the state of civil liberties in the Palestinian Authority: Dec. 28 – “Abbas Cracks Down on Main Political Rival Mohammed Dahlan”; Dec. 29 – “Fatah Bans Abbas Rival from Party Meetings”; Dec. 30 – “Journalist Who Aired Dissension in Abbas’ Party Gets Five-Day Detention.”

Also absent was a story that might have revealed the true face of Hamas and would have made it harder for the Left to rally to its banner: Dec. 28 – “Hamas Reported Torturing Killing Israel-bound Africans in Sinai.”

All these stories that the Times and Washington Post chose to ignore appeared in the space of a single week. This list does not begin to hint at many major stories that are barely covered during the course of a year such as the forced exodus of Christians from almost every Arab country and the Palestinian-controlled territories in response to daily violence and threats against them.

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Last week we took Marty Peretz to task for two rants against the release of Jonathan Pollard. But however offensive Peretz might have been there is little chance that he appreciably lessened Pollard’s chances of having the rest of his life sentence commuted. The same cannot be said for opposition leader Tzipi Livni who stuck a knife in Pollard’s back last week even as she declared from the Knesset podium “We will give our support to every effort to free him.”

First Livni demanded a Knesset vote on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s letter to President Barack Obama formally requesting the commutation of Pollard’s sentence. Then she ordered her Kadima faction to vote against the letter so as “not to turn Pollard into a political issue.”

Yet as Evelyn Gordon pointed out in her Commentary blog it was Livni who was playing politics with the Pollard’s life.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken a page from the playbook of her husband in trying to influence Israeli politics. In the late nineties Bill Clinton repeatedly signaled his preference for Ehud Barak over Netanyahu and even sent his top political operatives to Israel to aid Barak’s campaign. The Obama administration led by the secretary of state is doing the same thing to advance Livni at Netanyahu’s expense. Last month Clinton met with Livni for an hour at the State Department an unusually long time for an opposition leader.

By terming the request for Pollard’s release “political” Livni clearly signaled to the Obama administration that Pollard’s release would be viewed as a victory for Netanyahu at her expense and therefore should not be granted.

Shame.