8 THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2006
Bombing affects native Israel student
BY TOM SLAUGHTER
tslaughter@kansan.com
KANSAN STAFF WRITER
"Someone comes up to me and talks about it every day, no doubt," he said.
Israel native Daniel Coldham gets frustrated when people ask him about the conflict currently affecting his homeland.
"Is your family safe?"
"Have you seen any bombings?"
"It must be mayhem over there, right?"
And every day when Coldham, a senior in engineering, encounters questions like these, he grows tired of having to explain the situation.
"You don't realize most of the country is going about like nothing is going on," Coldham said.
Coldham, a practicing Jew, was born in London to an English father and an Israeli mother. His family
moved from England when he was 10 and lived outside of Tel Aviv, Israel since.
Two weeks ago, Hezbollah, a Lebanese Islamic group and political party, began bombing northern Israel and the group kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. Israel retaliated by bombing Lebanon, and the two sides have fought in the region since. Hezbollah is not affiliated with Palestine or the Palestine Liberation Organization, another political organization that has traditionally been at odds with Israel.
Coldham said he does not want to downplay the situation in Israel. He said the situation was intense and "the whole north is like a ghost town," but the rest of the country simply continues with its business. Coldham said that outsiders only see what is on the news - fighting in the streets of decaying cities and missiles exploding on night-vision network
cameras — therefore, they perceive the entire country to be a war-zone.
He said that while the northern Israeli city Haifa, with a population of roughly 250,000, was hit by Hezbollah missiles, the two largest cities in Israel, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, have not been affected by the fighting.
Coldham says in order to get a handle on the true nature of the conflict, he turns to Israeli news sites.
Rabbi Zalman Tiechtal practices in Lawrence. He said that education was the key for Americans to get a better appreciation for the situation. He suggested more awareness being made, perhaps in both schools and the media.
As someone with ties to Israel, the conflict has especially hit home with Tiechtal. His parents are currently in Israel.
SEE ISRAEL ON PAGE 9
Israel advances deeper into Lebanon
Mideast fighting continued into its 13th day as Israeli forces moved deeper into Lebanon.
SOURCE: ESRI
AP