A year after the Lebanon war, igal sarna remembers one
conflict and dreads another
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A year after the war with Lebanon, I have just traversed Israel from north to south with my 14-year-old daughter. This was a trip by a father who is trying to show his adolescent daughter the place where they are living and what is happening there.
The country is now in a state of what I would call post-war collective depression-confusion or perhaps pre-next war pressure. In the Galilee she and I saw how new green now covers all the signs of scorching at the hundreds of sooty sites where fires broke out from Hezbollah rockets landing last summer. The border fence has been repaired and locked. It appears as though no sign remains of what has just happened.
A friend of mine, a baker who made quite a success of the bread and cafe businesses in Tel Aviv, retired a few months ago to a house that he bought on the northern border, of all |
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| The country is now in a state of what I call post-war collective depression-confusion |
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places. And when we went to visit him, we saw that he is finding his serenity in an Arcadia of vines and olive trees that he is establishing for many years ahead.
But from his house we could see the border and he told us that in all the nearby villages there is talk of the next war. At night we sometimes heard the movement of heavy ordnance.
The chief of staff who presided over the defeat, Dan Halutz, was in effect booted out of his position and his successors want to restore the lost military honour, as is usual after every failed war. Thus our friend who has become a farmer is planting young trees and going from terrace to terrace in pursuit of pests; sometimes he looks up to the north and sighs but nevertheless he is not leaving.
Israel, a camp for refugees and fugitives, marks its 60th anniversary next year. For Israelis who are the same age as the state and younger, this is the only way of life they know and they are addicted to it. They are always worried, sometimes depressed and they are linked to one another in an 
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