A photo story about Israeli bomb shelters in today’s Guardian derided this basic security precaution as evidence of the nation’s “siege mentality” – a term denoting unwarranted fears or paranoia.
The caption accompanying the first example continues with this theme:
Of course, bomb shelters were built not because Israelis merely “felt” under threat. They were constructed because its enemies have, since the state’s founding, launched thousands of rockets into Israeli territory – representing an entirely rational security measure than any nation facing a comparable threat would implement.
Today, terrorist groups positioned on Israel’s borders (such as Hezbollah) continue to threaten the state with huge arsenals of increasingly sophisticated long-range rockets, and Iran issues bellicose threats to annihilate the ‘Zionist entity’ while developing the means to do so.
The Guardian has again demonstrated its unique capacity to impute pathos to nearly every aspect of Israeli life.