Things tend to repeat themselves with annoying cyclicality. Again there are threats of a chemical attack. Once again crowds of anxious citizens are flocking to gas mask distribution centers to pick up their kits. Homeland Command is recommending once more that people stock up on plastic sheeting and tape, and that they keep a damp towel handy. People are reviewing how to put on a gas mask when the sirens resonate: take it out of the box, remove the plug over the mouthpiece, connect the filter, fit it to your face and tug on the black rubber straps to tighten. Only after you’ve done all that should you put gas masks on your children. Anyone who has never seen a terrified child in a gas mask sobbing hysterically, or who has never felt the fear and sense of utter helplessness at that very moment can never really know what it’s like.
When the Gulf War erupted in January 1991, it was the first time that the threat of chemical weapons ever hovered over Israel. During the first three days of that war, a mistaken assessment was published saying that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s entire army had been destroyed during the first assault by coalition forces led by the United States. The feeling among the public was that Saddam’s threats to drag Israel into “the mother of all wars” was little more than bluster.
The siren went off at 2 a.m. As a novice journalist who was getting his feet wet at Israel’s TV Channel 1 News, it was my turn to spend the night at the station, so that I could call the people who need to broadcast back in case of an emergency. I was dozing off in one of the rooms, when I suddenly heard the wail of a siren. I jumped up with a start. I hadn’t heard a siren shatter the silence since the surprise attack that started the Yom Kippur War in 1973. What do we do now? How do we defend ourselves? How do we put on our masks? Where’s the sealed room? What do we actually do with all that plastic sheeting?
The first thing I did was call home to ask how the kids were. Unfortunately, the rest of the country had the same exact idea, so the phone system collapsed. Are they alive? Are they scared? I looked out the window and down in the street I could see a few people running. That was encouraging. If they’re not dropping dead in their tracks, it means that there’s no chemical cloud in the air, and that means there’s no threat of mass destruction, at least within a safe radius.
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