The Masada Faktor
Page 14
During the sixth week of the Gaza War, after August 12, there were peace talks in Cairo, Egypt but Israel continued to refuse to grant a seaport and an airport to be built in Gaza. The United Nations continued to carry on their craziness and allowed a fact finding committee to be led by anti-Zionist members which Prime Minister Netanyahu called, “A kangaroo court.” And they were demanding that Netanyahu be tried before an International Criminal Court.
Turkey was protesting the Israeli blockade of Gaza in the defense of Hamas. They were claiming that the Israeli Navy had violated a ceasefire, firing at Gaza from the Sea.
Accusations were flying from Hamas accusing Israel of a ceasefire violation when they were actually hurting themselves trying to disable Israeli missiles that had not exploded or blown up. In this incident in Beit Lahiya, two Associated Press journalists and three of their policemen were mortally wounded in that explosion.
Ceasefires, extensions to ceasefires, Hamas violating ceasefires. My brain was on overload. Netanyahu ordered the IDF to retaliate for rocket fire during a ceasefire. Then the United States announced that they were discontinuing sales of Hellfire Missiles to us, following the lead from the United Kingdom who had already stopped arms shipments to Israel.
Palestinians continued to threaten Israel although Gaza was being demolished and their death toll continued to rise, nearing 2,000. Israel held fast demanding security for all its citizens.
We, the citizens, were demanding demilitarization of Gaza. In a sincere gesture, Israel removed the fishing blockade against Gaza, allowing their fishermen to go three miles out.
After five days of a ceasefire, we started to feel some relief. We went about our lives again walking on eggshells.
Almost a hundred Hamas terrorists who planned a Third Intifada to overthrow the Palestinian Authority were arrested. I expected the West Bank to implode.
The next day fifty rockets from Gaza were launched again against us, after six days of quiet, hitting near Be’er Sheva. Iron Dome intercepted those missiles aiming toward Sderot, Netivot, and Tel Aviv. Netanyahu called our negotiators back from Cairo.
It was August 20 and the night before Hamas’ chief military commander Mohammad Deif’s house was hit by our IDF forces. His wife, son, and daughter were killed but Hamas denied that Deif died.
The leader of Hamas, Khaled Maashal had been seeking refuge in Qatar, from where he ruled Hamas in Gaza. It was reported that Qatar was ready to expel him if Hamas agreed with an Egyptian ceasefire plan.
A new record of Hamas rockets were fired into Israel that day. And something new was threatened. Hamas declared that all airlines should cancel flights into Ben Gurion. To think that flights in and out of Tel Aviv were affected was staggering.
On the morning of August 21 three powerful Hamas commanders were killed in an air strike. It had been determined that all three were deeply involved in the cross border tunnels. Hamas was not happy and more threats were hurled. An additional 10,000 IDF reservists were summoned. It seemed that all hell had broken loose.
On August 22 Hamas began to murder Palestinians that were suspected of consorting with Israel. Eleven were killed at a mosque and at an abandoned police station. A Russian Grad rocket hit a synagogue in Ashdod and civilians were hurt. More Grads were fired toward Gush Dan.
Israel started roof-knocking, to warn the Gazans to get out of buildings before they would be hit by the Israeli Air Force. Israel had invented this practice of hitting the roofs of buildings with nonlethal fire so that people would have time to flee. Hamas was using civilian homes as headquarters. We were horrified that they were keeping their own people prisoner in these buildings.
Hamas was firing at their own people who were trying to run away and also at those who were trying to leave Gaza to get medical help in Israel. There were Israeli Arab taxi drivers trying to help the sick and injured but Hamas was attacking them.
Israeli Army Intelligence stated that Hamas still had over 2,000 short-range rockets and many dozens of mid-range missiles left. They had expended over 70% of their weapons stockpiles.
It was still all very wild and Prime Minister Netanyahu personally warned Gazans to immediately vacate any site from which Hamas was operating. “…Every one of these places is a target for us.”
No one thought things could get worse but then Lebanon fired five rockets into northern Israel in the morning of August 24, causing a power failure and injury to two children. The Lebanese Army denied complicity and we did not return fire. Another five rockets came into Israel from Syria. We didn’t know if it was spill over from the Syrian Civil War.
As if Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were winning the war, we heard rumors, on August 25 that they began to make demands for an Independent Palestinian state. They said it would be formally announced on August 26.
First they wanted the UN to force Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders which, of course was laughable. That day Iran and Hamas both claimed to have shot down Israeli drones. Another rocket from Lebanon came into the Upper Galilee. This time Israel returned fire.
Suddenly there was a month long ceasefire announced. I didn’t believe that it would hold or that the war was over. I don’t think anyone else believed it either.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The white, heart shaped balloon came bouncing toward me carried by the slight hot breeze. It said I love you in bright red ink. I burst into tears. Then the balloon exploded with a boom. It probably was due to the steaming, broken sidewalk but I took it as a sign: I needed to be shocked back into reality. It did stop my tears and I noticed that I was on the corner of Binyamin Nahalot and Kalisher, near The Brown Boutique Hotel in Tel Aviv.
With no hesitation I decided to check into The Brown where, no matter what happened now, I could feel peaceful and cozy, or in a worst case scenario die happy. I would try to get a flight out of Ben Gurion Airport. Meanwhile, I would lay low.
With Hamas intermittently firing rockets in the airport’s vicinity and some airlines already suspending their flights in and out of Tel Aviv, I wasn’t sure what could happen if I couldn’t get out. I was truly sick and tired of all the ‘what if’ scenarios but I would be okay while I was at The Brown.
As I walked into the lobby the stereo was playing Going to San Francisco, the 1967 hit by Scott McKenzie and I took it as a sign to leave Israel as soon as possible. I was able to get a room on the first floor and was assured by the desk clerk that we could easily reach the temporary bomb shelter in the parking garage if a code red alert started to wail. My free glass of Cava, which wasn’t cold that day, was swallowed in two gulps. I couldn’t wait to get to the room, turn on the air conditioning and relax.
As soon as I flipped the air conditioning switch and stripped naked the vertigo hit, immediately knocking me to the floor. As I laid there breathing deeply there was a strong rap on the door.
I hollered “Come in,” before I remembered that I was naked. I had no time to grab something to cover myself before the unlocked door was pushed opened and a dark, muscular guy a few inches shorter than me said, “I am Kobi. I have brought your luggage for you.”
In a split second the handsome fortyish Israeli was in the room and threw my bags down. With his left hand he unzipped his pants and pulled out his beautiful pink member and I jumped up and couldn’t help but throw myself into his arms.
He smelled like cardamom, cinnamon, lavender, cumin, and cigarettes but I didn’t care. I jumped up onto his prick anyway which, by then, was rock hard. Amply wet and slippery by my own juices, I had no problem fitting his massive cock inside of me. Kobi’s lips reminded me of juicy sweet cherries and his kisses were soft and sensual. He had a melodic, low tone to his voice and murmured sweet sounds to me.
Still standing, we began to move rhythmically to the music of our panting which was getting louder and I think I began to wail because he put his hand on my mouth but not in a violent way.
“Beseder,” I nodded, “Beseder.” Whatever he was saying to me d
idn’t matter and I started to suck his tongue which put both of us in a frenzy.
We were still standing and I was taller, so I was able to keep his cock inside of me by squeezing my thighs and my pussy and balancing my body on his shaft until I was sure that we were both finished. It was like riding a human horse without a saddle. Then he let go of me and I fell backward onto the bed. I closed my eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I awoke to the deafening roar of passenger jets flying extremely low. The flight patterns had been changed because the Syrian civil war was spilling over into the Golan Heights in the north east where civilian planes normally flew.
There was no sign of Kobi and I didn’t know when he had left. Looking around the room, I didn’t see my luggage that he had brought in. Panic seized me and I grabbed the hotel desk phone to call the clerk.
“Where is my luggage that Kobi brought to my room?” I urgently asked.
“Kobi?” The clerk sounded surprised. “There is no Kobi working at The Brown Hotel. Your luggage is back in the storage room. Would you like me to send it up?”
“No, I will come down for it.” I needed to do some deep breathing. After a while, it was all clear to me. My heart skipped a few beats or possibly even stopped as I recalled my wild sexual experiences from the last six months in Israel.
I saw each face in my mind as a slide show: Monique, Saul, the Filipino, Eli, Jami, and Kobi. They were all figments of my imagination. Each time after the vertigo hit, I dozed off and then had wild sex. After it was over I then fell asleep and upon wakening, discovered that my partner had vanished.
They were visions, hallucinations, dreams, or something where I was in control of my actions but did not realize I was dreaming, like in a black out. Since I did not know it wasn’t real I cannot classify them as lucid dreams.
If I couldn’t decipher between reality and fantasy was I insane? At the very least, I was relieved to find that I had not been horribly promiscuous while in the Holy Land but woeful that the experiences had not been real.
I didn’t believe that Saul had come to Israel. He wasn’t at Masada. He was in Key Largo, Florida. What was it, a mirage that we had sex on Masada?
Saul was my enemy, yet I hadn’t regretted our sexual experience because it felt as if it connected me with the Masada Zealots in a very human way. Other Jews there, a long ago time had sex on that mountain, too. Except I hadn’t.
On the positive side, might the vertigo be my secret power to enter a rabbit hole of fabulous sexual satisfaction without the commitment of problematic relationships? Could I control the episodes to my enjoyment? So far they had been great.
No tests had been conclusive so far that there was any medical etiology to explain the vertigo. So that would remain a mystery until I could find a doctor who believed me, that the vertigo caused the sexual illusions. Or were they delusions?
Millie was still out there. I hoped I would never see her again but would not place any bets on that. At the same time, I knew that I was powerless to stop the ramifications of whatever plans had been hatched by the Nazis at the end of World War II.
The hatred toward my people cannot be changed. I wish I could call it an aberration, not the norm. I could only bear witness to it. I wanted to run. To get out of Israel, but only for the time being. I knew that Israel was my home now. But I needed to go away for a while.
The Masada Faktor may not have been the specific conspiracy that was to bring Israel down. But were there really any coincidences? As Mother used to ask, “Does fate really exist?”
You can add up all of the scenarios to kill the Jews and what do you get? Too many other likely suspects with similar plans.
Is Israel doomed to be destroyed by its many enemies? Or, will she persevere despite the age-old existential threats against us? We can intellectualize why so many disparage us when we exalt in our endeavors. We have made the desert bloom, built a democracy that accepts all people’s rights, contributed innovations to the world as we are surrounded by enemies. Israel became the greatest power in the Middle East. We are done being the dog that gets kicked.
Never Again is what we live by, yet it happens again and again. It is especially painful when fellow Jews collaborate with the enemy, become the enemy. We ask God why, without getting an answer. The perfidy by some of our brothers and sisters makes us sad; as hard as I have tried, I cannot understand what makes them so. Has God put them there to make us stronger? Are we still not strong enough?
We have only one choice, and that is to continue to exist. Each one of us does what we can, to ensure that it is so. And I will keep trying.
Three days later, on September 1 at 11:30 PM, I boarded a US Airways flight at Ben Gurion Airport and flew off over the Mediterranean Sea on a direct flight to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
Contents
PROLOGUE
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: HAIFA
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PART TWO: TEL AVIV
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
PART THREE: HADERA
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT