Operation Protective Edge ended almost exactly 10 years ago and I've been thinking about it a lot this year and especially this past summer. I was 24, just starting my first serious job in Tel Aviv after mandatory army service and a university degree, and was worried about my friends who were serving in Gaza as reservists, not to mention friends whose lives were completely disrupted due to the constant rocket fire, as opposed to what we experienced in the center where there were daily rockets and sirens but for the most part we carried on as best as we could, with the war in the background. For citizens south of Tel Aviv it was a completely different story and the children who suffered from intense rocket fire are now young adults, many of them serving in the IDF alongside reservists who were soldiers back then. I can't help but also think of the children on the other side of the border- what has become of the young adults who were children in 2014? What will be of the young adults in 10 years, who were children in a terrible reality today?
Each war has its own soundtrack and though released a few months before the war, this phenomenal song received significant airplay on the radio during that awful summer, fitting with the war atmosphere of the time. I only found out a few years ago that it uses a sample of the Yarkon Trio's 1964 cover of Peet Seeger's 'Where Have All the Flowers Gone', in the part where they sing 'When will they ever learn?'. When will we ever learn?
Where did you go my love?
I'm right beside you
Where is the mother, my mother?
You have been alone for some time
What about the good and soft sun?
It sunk as it rose
If so tell me, tell me if so
Everything is already told, stored, filed, and reported.
I hear horsemen again
You don't hear anything
And a bitter smell arises from the noise
And it will go and get stronger
Why am I cold, so cold?
It's not very complicated
You're familiar yet so far
You are next to yourself
I'm right beside you
If this is just a drill
It's truly a successful one
The skies are painted in vanilla
The horizon is ashen
Everything comes back redder
From the trenches and in the towers
Tell me, are we winning?
When exactly did all this happen?
While you all were writing songs
And what about them, if we're already talking?
They are left to those who remember
So basically, nothing happened
So basically, everything is in order
You were always willing to compromise
You are breaking my heart, I'm right beside you
If this is just a drill, it's truly a successful one
The skies are painted in vanilla
The horizon is ashen
Everything comes back redder, in stretchers and flowers
Tell me, are we? Tell me, are we?
Along the bank an old fox howls
Bootless commanders fell to pray
The silent wind shocks
A young girl escaped from the mosque
The darkness gathered and didn't descend
