Of course I understand why you wouldn't stay, and why you wouldn't want your children here. It's a war zone. Bombs are going off. Buses are blowing up. People sipping espresso are killed by shrapnel. Pizza eaters are targets. Mall-goers are risk-takers. University cafeterias cave in. Why in the world would you purposely put yourself (or your children) here?

I remember spring 1996. A spate of bus bombs - (successfully) designed by Palestinian extremists to help Benjamin Netanyahu oust Shimon Peres from office - brought my cousin, then attending the Hebrew University as an overseas student, into conversation with me. Many of her friends had gone home, back to the States, back to their home universities. She was wondering whether or not to join them. I certainly understand why your friends are leaving, and why you would go, I told her. But it's a calculation that's foreign to me. I moved to Israel four years ago, and this is my home. The question I ask myself is: should I stop taking buses and start taking taxis? I left the conversation with a sense of clarity: in the face of incessant terror attacks, those for whom Israel is "home" have a different set of considerations than those visiting. That is not just the way it is - it's the way it should be.

1996 seems like a picnic in retrospect. So there were bus bombs - even for a few consecutive Sundays. Now I have my bag checked when I walk into the video store, and I try to avoid going to the center of Jerusalem if at all possible, even by private car. And now I have come to a different clarity than I had in 1996 regarding what should be the respective reactions to terror of those who live in Israel versus those whose stay is transient.

I should say - by means of qualification - that I am not a "Zionist" who thinks that all Jews can or should live in Israel. There are many compelling reasons not to live in Israel, both practical and ideological, and I consider the existence (and thriving) of Jewish communities outside of Israel to be of the utmost importance. Moreover, I think that it is quite feasible to be a "Zionist" - that is, to believe in the right of Jews to political self-determination in this area of the world, and to ascribe to the modern State of Israel import - while living outside of geographical Israel. Zionist commitment can find expression not only in moving to Israel, but also in a myriad of ways of supporting and or participating in the Zionist experiment: for example, by supporting financially Israel and Israeli institutions, by garnering political support for Israel, by visiting Israel, or by protesting - whether in public or private - policies of the Israeli government that they believe unjust or misguided. These forms of commitment, of course, differ from those available to the Zionist who lives in Israel.

Also in the qualification mode, I will add that in the past - and to a lesser degree still now - I have tended to scoff at "solidarity" rallies, missions, and the like. More often than not, they seem to me to fulfill some kind of cathartic need of Jews who have chosen not to live here (or never even considered it). Either they feel that they "need to do something"; or they feel guilty that by not living here, they are not subject to the same dangers as those of us who do; or they seem to be aimed at rallying public support for Israel - an endeavor about which [whose utility] I feel ambivalent, for sympathy for blown-up Jews seems to last seconds, while criticism of Jewish (over-) reaction to the bombings and the ensuing killing of Palestinians goes on for months. (I must say that all of my cynicism aside, in the days of October 2000, when riots were taking place in the occupied territories and in Israel proper, and international news showed clips of protests against Israel from every corner of the world, words about and pictures of demonstrations of support genuinely lifted my spirits and relieved an incredible, overwhelming sense of isolation that I felt as an Israeli at that time.)

Yet many of the Diaspora Jews who ascribe import to the continued existence of the modern State of Israel and for whom visiting Israel is a part of their Zionist commitment have stopped coming here. I still understand them, of course. But I now hold those who claim to be "Zionists" in this sense to a different standard than I did previously. "Normally" the task of risking one's life for the continued existence of Israel is the duty of soldiers - an obligation from which those living outside of the state are rightfully exempt. Terror, however, does not target soldiers, but rather ordinary citizens. In this new situation, we are all "soldiers" whose weapon is our resolve to maintain some semblance of normalcy, of routine. And to those whose "normalcy" includes visiting Israel, I would suggest doing as we who live here do: insisting upon our continued presence here - each person in his or her respective measure - while taking extra precautions.

For consider this: what if masses of Israelis were to make the same calculation as those who have stopped coming - that now is not a good time to be here and (as one of my brothers who lives in the Unites States suggested to me) relocate, temporarily, until things have calmed? (If you haven't considered this possibility, perhaps it is because you haven't heard how many Israelis ponder it.) Is Israel a place to come and visit when things are secure, but when it involves risking one's life - one's commitment to its existence is on hold?

For, however extreme it may sound, that is precisely what's at stake: Israel's existence. In a recent conversation with another of my brothers (who also lives in the States), he was startled when I suggested that Israel's existence was, and is, threatened. But, he claimed, Israel's firepower is so vastly superior to the Palestinians! Palestinians can at best manage a number of terrorist attacks each week - surely no threat to the majority of Israelis! Mine, it seems, is the classic Jewish paranoia that leads Jews to believe that they are always under existential threat. But what he failed to understand - and what is critical for the subject under discussion - is that Israel's true "power" is not, and never has been, in the weapons we wield. That is not to say that weapons are unimportant and that maintaining a strategic military edge is insignificant. But Israel came into existence, and has survived for 54 years, because of the will, inner resolve, and commitment of its citizens - and of many Diaspora Jews and non-Jews, of course.

And, while there can be many manifestations of commitment, there cannot be two standards of commitment. For if a double standard characterizes the respective commitments of Diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews, a rupture is sure to ensue between them (like the one that I feel now). A double standard says: you have to continue living in Israel while things are difficult, but we won't even visit. Your lives will be at risk every day in malls, pizzerias, buses, etc. - ours not even on occasion.

If one of the underlying assumptions of Zionism is that Jewish blood is no cheaper than non-Jewish blood - then surely we must maintain that the blood of Jews living in Zion is no cheaper than that of Jews who live elsewhere.

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