News reporters swarmed the Israel Postal Company headquarters in Tel Aviv today, where dozens of Israelis waited impatiently in a creatively formed line to claim their government-supplied gas masks.
Little kids played with mask kits in the windy heat, as their parents sweated and strained to hear postal workers call ticket numbers over the roar of the media inquisition.
“No, we want the baby in there!” shouted the camera guy for one German TV news station, as the newscaster set his forehead to extra-grim, preparing to interview a young couple in line with their little girl. “She's a star,” the mother, Neta Palombo-Carmel, told me, laughing.
To the news camera, she said: “We're here to get a mask for our one-year-old baby… who will hopefully [live through] her second war so far.”
Although gas masks are available for Israeli residents year-round, the impending U.S. involvement in Syria's civil war has put Israel under more immediate threat, and has set in motion an all-out raid of the Israel Post's mask supply. In an act of typical nonchalance toward raging conflicts in the region, a cool “>the last-minute Israeli security cabinet meeting held today. Her husband, Erez, added: “It feels like it's going to be something real during this weekend.”
Government officials in both Syria and Iran “>Tablet Magazine found another guy freaking out on Twitter.
However, as evidenced by the overzealous media turnout at the post office today, this clamor is mostly just outsiders and journalists wanting to make a big deal about something Israelis long ago came to terms with. Gas-mask pickup is just another stupid chore on a hot windy day.
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