A Situational Update

Heading off for the Israel Museum soon, but here's a quick update of my situation and THE situation:

My program was moved from Haifa to Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon, and since then we have been staying in dorms at the Hebrew University campus. We found out Monday night that the ulpan program would continue on the Hebrew U campus, and that we will have classes starting again Thursday morning. Additionally, we will be having slightly longer days and Friday class in order to make up the time lost because of all these shenanigans.

In the meantime, I've been enjoying Jerusalem. Yes, there was an attempted bombing near the Old City gates on Monday, but that attempt was thwarted, and there have been no more attempts since. Additionally, there have been armed guards again on city buses, with drivers more fervently checking for tickets. Besides that, the city is its normal mix of relaxed and uptight; certainly, we're all checking for news updates as often as possible (especially in regards to Haifa), but we're also trying to get out, get a sense of normalcy back in our lives. Certainly, sitting at a coffeeshop near Ben Yehuda and enjoying a Turkish Coffee while watching tourists skim by has been a helpful sense of emotional solace.

On the flipside, people seem confident about the situation here. While attacks still continue on both sides of the border, there is the feeling that Hezbollah is becoming desperate, especially since their internal infrastructure has been greatly disrupted. Additionally, the IDF seems especially confident that an end to the situation is in sight, which means we should hopefully be on the downside of this situation, rather than the front end of an escalation. It also seems like Syria and Iran are not interested in being any more involved than they already are, and the US doesn't seem to want to get involved either, which they'd almost have to do if Iran became a front-line player. With all that, we definitely all look forward to things calming down, and more importantly, ensuring the safety of the Jewish state.

Of course, now that people have calmed down, there most certainly will be the inevitable political backlash against Israel, as there always seems to be when we get involved in international conflict. Hopefully, though, Israelis can stay the united people they've been for the past week, and while disagreements may occur on the tactics taken by the IDF, everyone here can hopefully agree that maintaining the national safety must always be a primary objective.

Hope y'all are well, should have my skypeness set up soon.

-David