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How quickly life perspectives can change. I was putting the finishing touches to this article when I heard the sirens of ambulances bringing the wounded from the latest attack in Tel Aviv to Icholov Hospital, which is right near my home.
It's been two months since there was an attack in Tel Aviv. A short while ago, an attacker entered a makeshift synagogue located in a large commercial complex in southern Tel Aviv in the middle of an afternoon service and started stabbing people. Three men are dead, and one is seriously wounded.
Reality has returned to Israel and Tel Aviv. The 36-year-old attacker comes from the West Bank village of Dura, near Hebron, and has no past known ties to any organizations.
Two hours later, another attack, this time in the West Bank around the settlements in the Gush Etzion area. Nine Israelis were wounded, and one has died in a combined shooting and vehicle-ramming attack. One of those wounded is reportedly an American tourist.
For the past week, our minds and hearts have been facing westward toward Paris, doing our best to forget our problems at home. Reality changes so rapidly.
Last week, I was writing about Israeli anger toward Europe, and especially toward France, for approving the labeling of products produced in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared at an event together with the French ambassador to Israel to express his solidarity with France and the French people.
For Israelis, the overwhelming majority of whom (but not all) share in the sorrow of the French people—with many, but not all, utterly shocked by the tragedy—it has been a strange feeling not to be at the center of such events.
The horrific incidents in Paris put our own fight against violent attacks into perspective. In many ways, the Paris attacks are similar to those on 9/11. In the moments after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center, I remember sitting in New York emailing my best friend in Israel, sharing my disbelief that more people had probably died in the previous few minutes in lower Manhattan than had been killed cumulatively in all of the attacks in Israel in the preceding few years.
September 11 took place in the midst of the second intifada, a series of extremist attacks that peaked in 2002, during which 452 Israelis were murdered. The wave of violence in Paris is taking place in the midst of our latest bout of attacks.
Our most recent round has been much more limited compared with its predecessors. After a few weeks of adjustment, the daily lives of most Israelis have not changed greatly, except for those who have been killed or wounded (along with their families). In Tel Aviv these past few weeks, you would have no idea that anything out of the ordinary was happening. Of course, that may change after today.
Some Israelis have been tone-deaf this week, complaining and questioning why the world has shown such compassion toward Paris while not condemning the continuing attacks in Israel. Most Israelis do understand the difference.
In Israel, we have been dealing with such attacks since the early 1950s, soon after the state was established. The Palestinians, in fact, are the fathers of such modern-day attacks, carrying out many spectacular assaults, including the multiple murders at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
There have been both larger and smaller waves of attacks in Israel over the decades since. However, Israel has never suffered an attack as deadly as the November 13 massacre in Paris. Most Israelis understand that regardless of how despicable the tactics used by some Palestinians may be, our struggle with them is a national struggle, one that could potentially be settled.
The attacks in Paris are not based on any national conflicts. Rather, the recent Paris bloodbath represents an assault on Western civilization. Therefore, the only solution is a complete victory over the perpetrators.
Israelis are by and large not worried about ISIS striking here in Israel. That said, the November 18 announcement that an ISIS cell made up of six Israeli-Arabs was recently discovered in the town of Jaljulia (less than 20 miles from Tel Aviv) has certainly caused some concern. Moreover, the presence of ISIS elements on two of our borders (Syria and the Sinai Peninsula) is troubling.
Despite Thursday afternoon's stabbings, most Tel Aviv residents would say, without hesitation, that they feel safer in Tel Aviv than in any major city in Europe. As a young owner of a neighborhood café told me after the day's attack, "I have friends in Paris at the moment, and they are too afraid to really go out and tour. Here, the streets remain packed and busy."
Marc Schulman is the editor of HistoryCentral.com.