Fertility Nation

I leave the work dinner early because I have to take my shots. "What's the rush?" asks Roee, my colleague who heads up technology. And it spills out because we're all having such a good time my sudden departure does warrant some explanation.

Fabricating one doesn't occur to me. As I open my mouth, I hesitate only briefly before realizing there's nothing to hide here among the Israeli colleagues who are by now also friends. So I tell him frankly: "We just started IVF."

Without skipping a beat and requiring no further explanation he reaches across the table to press my hand, "Wow. Good luck."

Welcome to Fertility Nation.

Most people know Israel as Start Up Nation, that hotbed of technology innovation and serial entrepreneurs. What they don't usually know is that it's also a place that values a healthy pregnancy almost as much as the successful exit. Though it becomes obvious if you take a quick look around. Pregnant women are everywhere. In a country this small they stand out in surprising numbers... in the cafes, at the shuk, on the streets of Tel Aviv on a leisurely Friday morning.

This pro-baby reality was on my list of good reasons to come in considering whether or not to move to Israel when I did. On the verge of 40 I believed Israel would be the best place to decide about motherhood, especially if I was to go at it alone. I picked my 40th birthday as my deadline for a decision which became irrelevant shortly after arriving because that's when I met T.

So here T and I are, embarked on the long and windy path to pregnancy together. And thank goodness for that because long and windy it is. As fluent as I am, my Hebrew is null and void in the face of Israel's social health system with its maze of administrative policies, loopholes, counter loopholes, inside connections and strong personality types. T navigates it with the ease and comfort of a native virtuoso, complementing his perfect Hebrew with endless reserves of patience and fortitude. That he is equipped with a car also helps take the edge off when we suddenly discover we need to go here, then there, and back again per doctor's orders.

I fully embrace the process while oftentimes feeling like I've fallen down the rabbit hole. Between the constant prodding of tests to check my follicles and hormone levels; and subsequent waiting for the phone call with orders for what to do next ("don't call us, we'll call you"), we are at the mercy of higher forces steering us towards the pregnancy finishing line. We follow along willingly and in full confidence everyone involved is clearly on our side. In fact, all of Israel feels somehow in on our mission to have a baby.

"Be'ezrat hashem," says the nurse at the 24 hour clinic we go to the night we get the phone call with instructions to start taking the medication Right Now. She's just finished teaching us how to dose and administer the 2 injections I need to take every night until further notice. When I joke about the size of the needles, she administers a gentler reminder about the reason we're doing this at all.

"Don't forget why you're here," she says. "At the end of all this, you're going to have a baby. Be'ezrat hashem." Literally translated: With God's help.

We've been hearing those words a lot lately, alternated with be'atzlacha, good luck. The first time I just sheepishly smiled and said thanks. Since then I've come to realize it's part of the virtual support system and positive energy that's being generated to see me through to the other side. In this context, be'atzlacha is simply what people say to an aspiring mother as she's leaving the pharmacy, clinic or doctor's office. It's what work colleagues say when you find yourself deciding to bring them in on something people in the States might consider T.M.I.

In Fertility Nation that's not the case. At times surreal at times comical, the process towards pregnancy is also full of revelation with every conscious step we take with increasing yearning towards something that will change our lives forever. Be'atzlacha has become our new mantra. Now I like hearing it at every turn.

A Year's Time

Today marks a year since I left New York and a lot has happened since then. Here's what's changed:

I moved to Tel Aviv
Entered the Israeli startup scene
Fell in love with a guy
Married him
Visited 3 different countries
Found a great job
Did the honeymoon thing

When I think of the difference this year has made I am astounded by all that. Usually it's the silent swoosh of another year passing with accelerating speed that astounds me instead. This has been happening more or less since my 20s and throughout my 30s when school, semesters and summer vacations gave way to the flow of Life As Is. Milestones happened along the way but never so many that were so meaningful in the mere span of 12 fleeting months.

There's a nice saying that reminds us life is what you make it. Each day counts because even though 24 hours may pass in a flash they add up to 24 hours. And the next 24 hours after that. So what you do with that time matters, including working hard, eating right, loving well and taking leaps of faith. For me coming to Israel was a leap of faith.

So today, to mark my one year anniversary since I arrived, we went hiking. Or so that was the plan. Now that I've been in Israel one year and feel like I'm settling in I want to get back to the things I love from before. Art. Reading. Teaching Yoga. Hiking.

Used to be I hiked all the time. Upstate New York, Patagonia, Colorado, the Palisades, Nepal. I have a list I'm pretty proud of but I haven't hiked much since coming to Israel. So today was a sort of new beginning. Also it's Saturday, the Israeli "Day of Rest."

We picked Nahal Taninim which loosely translated from Hebrew means "Alligator River." Israel is a beautiful country, from its European-style rolling hills up North to its Biblical desert landscape down south. Nahal Taninim is somewhere in the middle, a noncommittal 30 minute drive from Tel Aviv in the Carmel region, near Haifa. The trail itself is small and full of other people who had the same idea about how to spend their day not resting. That's the thing about hiking in Israel. Israelis love their country and getting to know it is popular among outdoor enthusiasts, youth groups, families, and all other citizens alike. That makes for a lot of people on one trail in a country this small, especially when that trail is considered "family-friendly."

Nahal Taninim ends up being nothing like the hikes I've experienced before or what I imagined for the day. But we are with some friends so we don't stop there. We end up at another park after that, marvel at its beautifully landscaped grounds and gardens of fresh herbs, then end up at one of Tel Aviv's best steakhouses. By the time we sit down to eat we must've "hiked" about 3 km.

But for a one year anniversary celebration of sorts it isn't bad. Nothing like what I imagined it would be but fun and full of laughs. Fall is just beginning and a cool breeze helped temper the still hot sun. We saw an ancient Roman aqueduct and the steak was delicious.

Mostly, today was pure pleasure in a series of moments that wouldn't have existed if not for every step and every minute that came along the way. These 12 months before could have just passed me by but they brought me here, to this new previously unimaginable life that I love. As the writer Milan Kundera says,

"There is nothing more obvious, more tangible... than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact."

We can grow heavy with such sadness. Or we can learn to take advantage of the "obvious." And revel in it.

Morning window

This is the view I snapped from my bed this morning. I lay there thinking about how much it had changed in less then a year. How the one before had been my view for 11 whole years before I moved. The window then hanging over to my right, shuttered against the sound of West 60th and Broadway, and covered by almost always closed dark green Venetian blinds. There was no point in opening them, as the only thing to see was the Time Warner building blocking any glimpse of the park (though sometimes I did lift the shade to see if people were carrying umbrellas). Walking up in my shuttered room was like waking up in a dim cozy cocoon before descending 11 floors down to face the city day.

Now my morning window lies over to my left. And is almost always at least a little open so I can feel the breeze and hear the birds in the trees right outside. Our window points towards the sea and even though our apartment is too far and too low for a view, you can still feel it in the air. But  my favorite thing about the window is the birds. If I peer out I can see them in the branches, nonchalantly looking about as they make their festive noise.

The new window is indicative of everything else that has changed too. The rhythms and patterns of my days. The constant sunshine with which they begin this time of year in Tel Aviv. The way I move laterally to get to work across the apartment instead of down to the street and then the subway further below. Everything is quieter now too, the forever longing of New York replaced with the calm contentment of knowing better where I belong. There is still so much I need to do to feel truly settled here but I know that it will come.

In the meantime, there's the view. 

On Planning My Wedding

The wedding is now in three weeks minus a day. People keep wanting to know: how is the planning going? are we getting excited? nervous?

Oh fine, fine, I tell them. We have a list. Slowly we are checking everything off. As of early this week, we even have a rabbi!

I'm still enjoying a mild disconnect between everything that's going on and the fact that it's happening to me. The whole concept of a wedding on the cusp of turning 40 still a bit difficult to grasp as someone who had stopped really imagining such a chapter existed in her personal storybook.

Nevermind a floor length white gown custom tailored and sewn. Or a hall full of ~400 people I will mostly still only marginally know. And a person who will charge a small fortune to style my hair that day so it will look bridal when I myself barely even ever brush it.

But so it is. I am getting married. It's amazing to me still how I've gotten so swept along and up in the momentum of it all. Weddings in Israel are a very big deal. For such a small country there is an extravagant amount of boutique wedding dress, jewelry and shoe shops lined up in a row on Dizengof Street. Everybody knows a good bridal hairdresser or makeup person they are dying to recommend. And money is no object, although the whole affair usually costs a disproportionate amount of most average Israelis' income.

It wasn't so much that Tzury and I picked this particular way to get married as we just followed the steps that seemed set so clearly before us. Ironically, as intense as it's been, having a proper Israeli wedding was actually the path of least resistance and also what felt most naturally right to us both. When in Rome.

And so the invitations have finally all been sent and the catering has been sampled and set. Tomorrow we go ring-shopping and next week we meet with Danny, our famous Israeli DJ to pick a soundtrack. The week after that our friends and family will begin to arrive from all over, starting, most appropriately, with my mother. I am good with it all and I'm even beginning to get a little bit excited.

Still, I laugh a bit when I think of what awaits on July 3rd. Lying in bed at night I wonder what was I thinking? and have small fantasies of wearing a casual white pantsuit instead and just brushing my hair. There is no rabbi and we simply exchange vows (mine is poetic and long and in English). Our friends and family are happy for us and we dance. It is a night we will remember forever.

And we will. 

Room #8

We gather outside Room #8 like so many girls waiting for a free check-up. After T and I opened our tik nisuin - marriage file - at the Rabbinate a week earlier, the Rabbi had instructed me to go to Room #8 to set up "my appointments" with the Rabbanite. I did as I was told. The Rabbanite, I then learned, is the female Rabbi who would tell me everything I needed to know about getting ready to get married. I didn't know there were things I needed to know (aside from whether I wanted to marry T). 

Apparently there were. The first order of the day was to attend a 10 am lecture with the Rabbanite for brides-to-be. Wait. That was me.

I am one of the first to arrive and as the pack grows it starts to feel like a special little clique. Maybe it's the quiet milling about. Maybe it's just me. Indeed I'm one of - if not the - oldest among us. Everyone is wearing a diamond ring on the finger that's meant to declare our engagementhood. Ironically today is the day I've forgotten mine. 

Despite my missing ring - and my relatively advanced age - I feel an overwhelming sense of belongingness here. A sense of having gotten into grad school. Or passing the audition. In the near 2 months that have passed since T proposed I am still basking in the aftershock glow of the sudden turn my life has taken towards bilateral, unconditional romantic love. This was not the script I thought had been written for me. Then somebody decided to give me another. So here I was. Waiting for our 10 am lecture with the Rabbanite to start.

When she opens the door at last at 10:20 am (this is Israel, after all), we pile in and find a plastic seat around her desk. The Rabbanite is a tall thin woman, pale with pointy features and wide, clear blue eyes. Brown bangs peak out from beneath her beige head wrap and pale forearms jut out from her rolled-up beige sweater sleeves. She is not wearing any makeup and is not particularly pretty but she is a commanding presence at her small schoolteacher desk. When she speaks her thin body vibrates with emotion.

The Rabbanite begins with a hearty, heartfelt mazal tov! to us all then gets down to it. We are told that everything we are about to hear has been passed down for 3324 years. We are told that according to the Torah, there are three mitzvot - commandments - specific to keeping house in the Land of Israel. One is the lighting of candles on Shabbat. The second is the keeping of a kosher home. The third has to do with relations between husband and wife.

She tells us real love is something we will only truly experience once we are married. Because that's when the real work begins. We are told maintaining our purity = good gynecological health for our husband as well as ourselves, and that practicing abstinence during our cycle only kindles the sexual fire (Disclaimer: I am loosely translating her Hebrew). She tells us everything we ever wanted to know about paying a visit to the mikveh.

Most of us stare at the Rabbanite as she speaks. I am the only one taking notes (albeit for this blog). Some girls nod their heads in apparent agreement with some of her finer points. Only one girl is alternately studying her painted fingernails or some magical horizon on the white wall before her. Everyone is secular but most everyone looks pretty serious about this.

I find it all fascinating. These traditions. These laws about love and age-old practices meant to help preserve a marriage. I am not religious but I am not dismissive either. I know married people sometimes need all the help they can get. I also know that, since moving to Israel, the fact that I am Jewish is probably more important to me than it's ever been. Sitting in the Rabbanite’s office with 13 other girls I feel the strange, unexpected thrill of belonging to something bigger than just me.

A Jewish Wedding in 1903

And here I was thinking that getting married was all about me.

When the lecture ends the Rabbanite calls us each up by name to receive a small package. It is something resembling a Jewish How-to-be-a-Bride Kit, complete with helpful pamphlets, blessings for the bride, and a list of mikvehs in the Tel Aviv area. I sheepishly also request a copy of the CD she recommended earlier of some famous rabbi’s talks, telling her I thought it sounded interesting.

Outside I fiddle with the lock on my bike while a young man on the bench beside me loudly coordinates a meeting with someone on his cell phone. He interrupts himself as I get on the bike to ask me whether I’d just come out of the building and whether I am about to get married.

“Yes?” I half-answer half-question, on the verge of laughter.

He’s already speaking into his phone when he replies, “Mazal tov."  

------

Picture: Painting by Jozef Israeli (1824 - 1911), courtesy of Wikipedia

Chag Sameach and Happy Spring!

This is my nephew Ariel (aka the whirling dervish). 

This will be our first Passover together now that I’ve moved to Israel. Since I arrived he makes me happy regularly by reminding me about the joy of fresh starts. Watching his reactions to a new discovery or game or word is a lesson each time.

In this picture - taken on his first trip to the Negev this past weekend - Ariel is discovering the desert wind (during a sandstorm). 

With Passover comes the fresh start that is Spring. Israel is in full bloom. Houses are being cleared and cleansed of bread crumbs and dust bunnies. And this eve we will commemorate the Jews' freedom from slavery. 

It is a time for joy!

May you find it in every corner of your life this Passover...and, like Ariel, every day thereafter. 

With love and best wishes, 

Keren

I don't want another story.

tzury asked me to marry him last night. he asked me just like that and i said yes. it was not a grandiose pre-meditated moment, far from anything i had ever imagined. there was not even a ring. 

i said yes then grew quiet, probably from the shock of how far the reality of the moment was from my imagining of it. i considered whether years of American culture and reality TV had effectively taken their toll: was i so deeply brainwashed by the tales of elaborate proposals and glamorous rings that i could not just revel in the beauty of this quite different approach by someone i simply wanted to spend the rest of my life with?

i hated to think that was so. i imagined the question that would invariably follow the news of my engagement to the man i loved - "how did he do it?" - and wondered what i would say. 

"um we were laughing about something in bed. and um chatting. and then he asked me." 

a few things came before. a wedding and a funeral, to be precise (no joke). two consecutive days of emotional intensity set the stage for the proposal that followed one late Wednesday night, as anti-climactic as it was. 

although the truth of the matter is that maybe anti-climatic is fitting for us. having met barely 2 months ago, then moving in together barely 1 month after that, people thought we were crazy to be going so fast. how could we be so sure, especially as set as we were in our independent ways at our age? did we even really know each other yet? 

but those 2 months were full of solid moments of positive reinforcement. we cooked and cleared closet space. met each others' friends and family (including over Skype). we visited Ikea and spent 4 days in Rome. and of course attended that wedding and that funeral. we discovered we had stores of patience for each other that never seemed to wane, and that being together was never dull even if were just watching bad TV.

as accelerated as things might have seemed from the outside, for us things were just moving forward as they should. every once in a while we would stop to marvel at our strange reality and laugh at the giddy conviction we thought only teenagers could feel when they were dating someone new. 

but in general we agreed, if something feels this natural and obvious why would we possibly waste time and energy fighting it?

so maybe tzury’s whispered proposal under the covers in the dark makes perfect sense. and the way his question came rolling out followed by my answer (i made him ask me again just to be sure). another story involving helicopters and hot air balloons might be more fun to tell. but this one is mine.  

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

I hate the question, "what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

I get it every once in a while when people find out I moved to Israel from New York. Everyone knows New York is great. I knew it too, when I left my hometown with some sadness if not mixed feelings.

New York is a hard place to leave. It is vibrant and awe-inspiring and it's magic was never lost on me even at it grittiest. I appreciated the movie-like grandeur of where I lived on W 60th Street smack dab in the middle of Woody Allen-ville near Lincoln Center in one direction, Central Park in the other - and a Whole Foods down the street. I would step onto the street in front of my building every morning to greet the pedestrian madness of students, doctors, businesspeople, tourists and residents always passing by. Columbus Circle was the point of so many destinations, and the centralized hub of so many subways lines branching out all over the city. You were never alone.

And I appreciated the grit too right down to the packed subway and the shiny concrete streets on grey rainy dreary days. Sometimes New York was overwhelming, but mostly I enjoyed the instant easy access to everything I could ever possibly need. Central Park was my respite for dog walks or long runs, and work was always an easy 20 minute commute no matter how many times I changed jobs. My neighborhood also happened to be my old high school stomping ground and every once in a while I would smile to think of the teenaged me hanging out at LaGuardia High School of Music and Art just down the street. And here I was now, all "growed up."

I loved New York to the bitter end, and chose to leave anyway. "Leave on a high note," they always say. I simply realized it was time for a change after several years secretly suspecting it was true. The moment of truth hit me in Nicaragua of all places on my way to a yoga class amidst mango and coconut trees. I was traveling again in between jobs and knew right then that I could not just go back to life as I left it. New York was great but there was no picking up where I left off to my office job interspersed with friends, parties, runs, dinners, weekend day trips, trips... and nothing else. My New York life lacked for nothing but I still felt something was missing. Perhaps a change of scenery would help me figure out what.

I thought family might have something to do with it so I came to Israel, where my sister and nephew live. My parents are in New York and I am close to them both. But we are only two sisters, who had never really gotten to know each other as adults and were now getting ready for families of our own. Getting to raise our children with the cousins and aunts we ourselves didn't have growing up so far away from extended family would be a gift.

And I was approaching 40. New York's celebrated diversity includes its fair share of single men and women who live the high life well into whatever age they see fit. I had been in and out of relationships but had counted myself among them for some time. Every once in a while, visions of my life 5 or 10 years later flashed before my eyes. Nothing had changed. I was still living my comfortable  Upper West Side existence, balancing work and pleasure as best I could, indulging every once in a while and saving as much of my expendable income for "the future" as possible.

That was the easy part. The rest had become one big murky blank I could not quite conjure into focus.

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" my American colleague wanted to know. It was an honest and sincere question. He really wanted to know, he who wears a kippa and considers himself "trapped" here by children and grandchildren who make it too difficult to leave.

Israel is not an easy place. Unless you are religious and filled with Zionist zeal - which he knew I wasn't - it can be hard to understand what compelled me to replace the ease and flow of New York with something more challenging and difficult on so many levels. A place practically claustrophobic with beauracracy, politics and geography where the money to just make ends meet doesn't come anywhere near as easy for so many. The question is in fact so understandable it is always hard for me to explain, so instead I laugh along and agree I must be crazy.

Sometimes I think I am. The rest of the time I look at my life with its new set of uncertainties and am filled with gratitude. I didn't leave New York for guarantees that things would be better. But I know a nice girl like me deserves to live her best possible life - even if means leaving the comfort of everything she knows with only some vague hope she might find it.

My sister and me enjoying a laugh.

"There goes the boom."

It is not lost on me that I "escaped" New York's Hurricane Sandy only to arrive in time for Israel's Operation Pillar of Cloud. Though several Israelis note it when we speak just in case.

Still it's not until the siren goes off in Tel Aviv and Leeron comes rushing into the bedroom (where I happen to be watching "Homeland") that the reality of rockets flying back and forth across Israel's border with Gaza truly sinks in. We are at something of a war here and actual lives are at stake. Including, it seems, our own here in relatively far away Tel Aviv.

The sirens peel off in escalating wails indicating the alert. These are typical sounds for those living along or near Israel's North and South borders; not so for Tel Avivians who's "hands on" experience of the ongoing regional conflict last manifested most directly during the 1991 Gulf War (when 40 scud missiles fell on Tel Aviv) and the Second Antifada in the early 2000s (when suicide bombers were most rampant in cafes, markets and buses). Sirens are the regular occurrence of towns like Be'er Sheva and Kiryat Melachi in the south or Nahariya and Kiriat Shmona in the north. In Tel Aviv, people hear about them on the news and shake their heads in sympathy. Or worry about their fathers and sons who might be stationed somewhere near there.

There is a general code of conduct about what to do in the event of a siren and most Israelis - bordertown or no - learn it at young age. If your apartment has a bomb-proof room (as many do) go there, otherwise head straight for your building's basement or the community bomb shelter. The first siren caught us all by surprise early Thursday eve and was over before my sister, Yaron and I even knew what to make of it. Somewhere off in the distance we heard the muffled sound of a rocket making impact (with what we found out later was the sea). Moments later, I received a worried text from an Israeli friend telling me I should move away from any windows and into a stairwell if time was short. Duly noted.

The second siren happened this afternoon. This time I was out and about with a friend on Sheinkin, Tel Aviv's famed bohemian street lined with trees, juice stands and boutique shops. On a Friday afternoon people were busy enjoying the first day of their weekend before Shabbat rolls in and the cafes were packed. We had just walked into the Ronen Chen boutique to admire their Winter Season line when the wailing began.

Outside people were running for nearby cover. Inside the two salesladies ushered my friend and I into the fitting rooms in back. The four of us stood looking at each other slightly wide eyed. Although the situation felt more comical then scary my heart was beating fast. I was still calm but this second siren seemed more serious, more ominous somehow then the first. I wondered where my sister was, knowing she was on her way to visit a friend with Ariel and suddenly imagining her lone car on the highway with my blond baby nephew in back. My friend was unmoved by it all but patted my shoulder anyway and asked if I was okay. I told her I was.

Then the muffled sound of something somewhere making impact and the saleslady with the horn-rimmed glasses standing next to me matter-of-factly said, "There goes the boom."

And on cue the wailing stopped, followed by a brief silence then sounds of relief, exasperation, frustration, chatter, etc. At the bakery a little further up Sheinkin people were already making jokes, wanting to know about the special "rocket discount" on baked goods for Tel Avivians. A woman walking past was telling someone on the other end of her cell phone she had planned to go to Bank Leumi for cover. Yet another woman seemed entirely surprised to hear about the attack, having missed the siren altogether. "Really?? I had no idea!"

Tel Aviv life on a Friday afternoon quickly returns to normal and yet it is disconcerting to be caught in the midst of this latest unfortunate escalation. Later on, my friend tells me of running to his daughter's ballet class after the siren stopped to find a roomful of 9-year old girls crying in their pink tutus. Being shepherded into the school's bomb shelter by their otherwise stern Russian ballet teachers with neither parent in sight had perhaps been more then they could bear. Back home, I find my brother-in-law reading the Friday paper on the couch. He tells me hearing the sirens and knowing missiles are falling near or around Tel Aviv is not unlike holding his first gun as a soldier: more surreal then anything else.

The experience in the south is a little more concrete - not just in Israel but in Gaza too. My Israeli friends on Facebook issue warnings not to post information about where rockets are landing which could help Hamas figure out how to perfect their aim; and the Israeli Consulate sends emails about the millions of Israelis "under fire... with rockets landing as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem." On TV the ticker sign on Israel's Children's Channel informs us programs will run all night instead of stopping at 8:30 pm "given the situation." In many Israeli homes tonight some children will be too scared to sleep.

With that - despite that - it is impossible not to think about the children in Gaza too. Enough Israelis are as mystified as they are terrified by the war that seems to have suddenly once again started. Enough of them are acutely aware of the abysmal circumstances that make the Palestinians such easy pawns in the hand of their terrorist leaders to feel sympathy, not anger or hate. As the rockets fly back and forth down south I find myself adopting the quintessentially nonchalant "we will get through this too" attitude most Israelis have by now perfected - alongside the concern of some of my friends.

"Don't worry," I tell my parents when they call from New York, "Everything is fine."

Sure enough, in a matter of days or maybe even sooner the rockets will stop. It will be life as usual. The sad reality is things won't have gotten any better.


Postscript 11/17/12:

An Israeli friend sent me this comment in response to my post which I am including here because I think it's important for additional background and context:


Karen - I generally agree with what you say re: children of Gaza. I agree that most Israelis are concerned about them too, that as you stated, "the Palestinians such easy pawns in the hand of their terrorist leaders." The Israeli public unanimously support our actions (91pct public support according to latest survey), also knowing that we have the most Humanitarian military in the world (an observation shared by many military experts around the world). We take far more extreme precautions to protect civilians than US and European Militaries and we are compliant with International Law.

This generates two problems.

The first problem is that the terrorists are aware of this and thereofore use their own families as human shields.  For ex: the procedure have been that before we attack a target such as a missile arsenal hidden in basement of a terrorist's house, we would telephone the house and tell the terrorists and families that we're bombing and to leave now. We would then fire warning shots at the house and only then bomb it whereas the US/UK/NATO would just bomb it (um "Homeland" anyone?? - kk). We see in some cases, some documented in film, the terrorists take their children to the roof of their homes to wave up at the jets/reconnaissance planes. They know we won't bomb them this way and we don't. The arsenal and building are saved. Missiles from this arsenal later are fired and kill/injured Israelis.

The second problem is that unlike you, many in the West do not see the Gaza Palestinians as victims of the their terrorist leaders but of Israeli aggression, who is "bombing them". Not only in Europe and radical press.  This astonishing headline appears in yesterday's Washington Post:
http://www.nationalreview.com/sites/default/files/nfs/uploaded/u25930/2012/11/pic_corner_111512_wapo.jpg

Of all the faces of the Gaza war they chose to show a Palestinian baby killed. There have been "only" 15 deaths in Gaza at that time almost all terrorists (the handful non-terrorists included the son of the terrorist killed in the first attack). I'm not in any way, undermining the tragedy of this baby being killed. But to choose to lead with this is unadulterated "Israel-bashing" which helps create anti-Israel sentiment.

On the morning after BinLadin's killing, Did the Washington Post lead with the picture of Bin Ladin's dead child? (also an innocent bystander). Do they regularly show dead babies killed sadly and accidently by US forces in Afghanistan?

So I'm just saying all this to underscore your point.  We understand that we don't just have the Hamas on the other side but also those that indirectly back their effort (sorry, but the Washington Post is included).  And in doing so, are on the wrong side of both Israel and of the Palestinians.

(By the way, Hammas fired a missile last night into the West Bank. Landed near a Palestinian village. Luckily no one was hurt. It was intended to hit Jerusalem, to kill Jews, but they missed).