A Visit to Israel In Extremis

In my dream, I was a young American visiting Israel when the '67 War broke out.  I was taken everywhere along with a few others in a tank.   The tank was spacious but there were no windows; we never knew where we were or where we were headed.

Curiously, in the dream I knew the broad history of the war, and most specifically that it would only last six days, with Israel triumphant.  But it was very stressful to ride in the tank.  I felt that at any moment we could be ambushed and killed.

In the evening, we went to a very large and informal Israeli restaurant.   We chatted with two young Israeli friends of ours who were sitting at the end of a table that held about 20 of their friends and family members.  No one asked us to sit; no one offered us any food.    This annoyed me; I was very hungry.

After the chat we left, passing by as we did a large electrified mural purporting to show the progress of the war.   On the mural, Israel was shaped more like Switzerland than like Israel.  While the mural showed many Israeli advances, it also showed setbacks in some places.

In the far west, the mural pointed to one area and said that it was generally very quiet as a "trading zone."   And indeed, on the map one could see veiled Arab women, alive in real time, going to or coming from market.  Just then an errant shell landed among them.   Several of the women fell to the ground screaming, and within a minute or two they bled out.   Their wounds were horrible.  The other women cried out in mourning.   I felt sickened, physically.   I just wanted the whole thing to end.