86 Days to Go
Are We Ready for an Attack?

By Sherwin Pomerantz

There are now 86 days to go to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly and the vote on recognizing Palestinian statehood.

No one really knows what will happen the next day but this week in Israel preparations are being made to make the population aware of the need to be ready for a potential attack on all of Israel. Comforting eh?

So at 11 AM this morning sirens sounded throughout the country and those of us in offices were herded to the “safe rooms” built into each building here. In our case our office is located in a 25 year old building which I actually had a hand in designing when it was the headquarters of LUZ, the Israeli solar energy company that, at the time, built nine solar power generating stations in the high desert of California. The building management came around yesterday to advise everyone that it was the law of the land that when the siren sounds everyone is to leave their work places and go downstairs to the safe room.

At 11 AM the sirens dutifully sounded but, regrettably, we did not hear them because we found out that in this Tech Park of close to 50 office buildings, there is no siren and the closest one is too far away for us to hear the sound. Nevertheless, we knew that at 11 AM this is what we had to do, so we went even without hearing the siren.

When we got there we found two things. First, that the room is way too small for the number of people now working in this building, which has been expanded significantly from when it was first built. We had originally designed the building to house 300-350 people and there are now over 500 people working here. In addition, as in many of these safe rooms (or, more accurately, bomb shelters) given the years of calm that we have experienced, the building management has been using the room as a storage facility for all kinds of things, so there is even less room for the people working here than the design capacity. And finally, there are no supplies for a stay as long as even one hour (i.e. no sanitary facilities, no bottled water, etc.).

So, in terms of giving us a feeling that we were somewhat safe and prepared should disaster strike, it was clear to all of us that (a) we will probably not hear the sirens when they are used to alert us to a real emergency, (b) not everyone in the building will be able to fit into the bomb shelter should such a situation develop and (c) the room, sadly, is not equipped with the basic supplies necessary to permit human functioning for more than a few minutes.

What a difference from last night when I was privileged to be at the opening session of the President’s Conference here held at Binyanei Hauma, the national conference center in Jerusalem. There, everything was perfect. The 60 year old facility had been redecorated so that it looked new, service help was in great abundance making sure the 4,000 participants had food and drink at all times, every high tech communications convenience was available for all to use and all of the glitterati were there to see and be seen. I don’t even want to fantasize about the availability of a bomb shelter there to house the participants at any conference.

And that’s the real Israel. The dichotomous conflict between Israel, the high tech wonder with 3,000 tech startups functioning at any one time and Israel, the country that cannot defend itself against all of its neighbors should the need arise nor provide sufficient protection for its citizens should an attack occur.

It is because of that dichotomy that I am so concerned about what happens the day after the UN vote should it actually take place. And it is the inability of some of my critics to see the possibility of disaster in the making that makes me fear for the future. The civilian defense exercise this week is a critical event that will demonstrate to the authorities where our civilian fault lines are located. Let’s hope that these same authorities can address those issues in the next 86 days.

Robertson Davies, a well-respected Canadian writer, journalist and professor who died in 1995 once said “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” Let’s hope our leadership has 20/20 vision.