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The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

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Israel and the war

I know that a war with Iraq has begun but so far it hasn’t effected my life at all except for ridiculously high gas prices, people calling French fries "freedom fries" and what seems like every single news station in the entire world discussing what’s going on there. Besides these few things, life’s pretty much the same as ever; I get up, go to school, try to stay awake during my classes, then go home, do homework, and sleep.

In countries such as Israel, however, the war is drastically changing every day life.

I recently talked with a relative, Uri Nahari, who was also a former public health educator for the Israeli army. There is a siren only about a block away from his house in Ramat Hasharon, a residential area near Tel Aviv, and he and his family are prepared in case of a biological or chemical attack.

"We’ve built a shelter," Nahari explained, "and we are all going to run there if there is an alarm… It’s psychologically frightening!"

In addition to bomb shelters and sirens, about a month ago people distributed gas masks to the residents of Ramat Hasharon. Students take them everywhere they go: to malls, to schools, everywhere! Gas masks could mean the difference between life and death in the event of an attack using chemical warfare.

I guess the gas mask is the equivalent of a very large retainer, since you have to always carry it around unless you’re actually wearing it at the time. Even with a retainer, you don’t have to bring it absolutely everywhere like the students in Israel do. This raises some questions. Do they have to bring their gas masks into the bathrooms? What if they’re babysitting a two-year-old child who tries to stuff the mask into his/her tiny mouth? Is the babysitter allowed to put it out of reach? Or would that make it not so easily accessible in case of an emergency?

I wonder if they make gas masks that fit very small children. They probably do, and probably also come with labels on the back saying, "Please make sure your own mask is securely fastened before helping others," similar to the airplane safety video.

If everyone in the US had to wear gas masks, I’m sure it would be vaguely amusing in a terrifying way. I think gas masks make people look like giant, mutated ducks. Imagine what would happen in a schoolwide gas mask drill. In an instant, the entire classroom would be filled with duck-like aliens. Maybe the principal would make an announcement and say that everyone should definitely make sure to carry his or her gas mask everywhere to ensure everyone’s safety, and, just in case you didn’t already know, you’re still not allowed to freak at school dances. This further update on freaking would probably make the front page of every single newspaper in the country the following day.

Since many people in Palo Alto are strongly opposed to war, I asked Nahari what his opinions were.

"War is a very bad thing," Nahari said, "but we hope that it’ll be a short war and then [the US] will be able to finish it…. Saddam Hussein has fired missiles [at Israel], and we’re afraid he’s going to fire missiles with biological agents. Especially if he gets nuclear weapons, he’s a threat to the world."

This Israeli attitude shocked me. Sure, there’s been a lot of talk about what would happen if Saddam Husain bombed the US, but realistically, that won’t happen. In Israel, the threat is real, since Saddam has actually bombed Israel before. To Israelis, Bush is simply invading Iraq as a pre-emptive strike to protect Israel. This is probably the best reason that has been presented to me thus far for invading Iraq.

I still believe (as do many students at Paly) that the US shouldn’t be in Iraq, and that the real reasons Bush is fighting this war is for oil and votes in the next. However, I appreciate the Israeli perspective. Many people are much more vocal about their perspectives than I. Before Spring break, there was a huge peace protest, and many students protested there. My sister is donating money to help civilians in Iraq. As for my war efforts, I occasionally turn on the TV in hopes of seeing the end of the war. Unfortunately, peace hasn’t come yet, but I hope it does soon. I’ll keep checking, just in case.

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