On the third anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, Bondurant resident Diana Watkins’ carried a personal connection and perspective on that land and its people she never would have anticipated.
It came from three weeks at an Israeli Defense Forces base that involved a couple of sprints to bomb shelters as Israel responded to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
The retired college computer professor, current postal worker, and woman of faith said her experience began with a calling.
“I am an evangelical Christian and I just out of the blue got this calling from God that I was supposed to go to Israel and help the IDF,” Watkins said.
The calling came after the Hamas invasion hit the news and as she was considering the next steps in her life after retiring as a professor. She holds doctorate and master’s degrees in education and computer technology.
Watkins was pondering returning to the Postal Service, where she worked part-time.
Then, out of nowhere, the thought arrived.
She had a difficult childhood that involved placement in a foster home. Her foster parent was Jewish and taught her about Jewish culture.
But Watkins had never gone to Israel, never wanted to — until that thought.
She said she believes it was a “prompting of the Holy Spirit.”
'You’ve Got To Be Kidding'
“I sort of burst out laughing and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’” she recalled. “I’ve never been there. I’ve never been overseas. I know a few Jews but ... why me?’”
Watkins realizes she has a strong personality and in no way wanted to just launch into a trip to Israel because she was thinking it was a good idea.
More wrestling led her to contact the nonprofit SAR-EL, which was founded in 1983 after an effort that began the previous year to provide volunteers for Israel. The organization helps address resource shortages during times of national need.
SAR-EL advertises itself as non-political with a mission to provide logistical support to the IDF and create a cultural and educational exchange between the volunteers and Israelis.
Her application led to several background checks in the U.S. as well as in Israel to determine whether she was an appropriate candidate. As part of the application, Watkins had to promise not to proselytize any Jews if she was granted access.
“They all decided I was not a terrorist or anything,” she said.
Her thought was becoming reality.
She purchased a plane ticket and arrived at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport in February 2024 to spend three weeks living at an IDF base, wearing an IDF uniform and being the only non-Jew to show up for that cohort of volunteers.
Watkins said SAR-EL brought in about 200 people from Canada, France, Australia and other nations who were bused to an Israeli base she is not allowed to disclose. After an initial briefing, she was assigned to work creating and filling large trauma kits used to save wounded soldiers during the “golden hour.”
“Golden hour” refers to the critical period immediately after a traumatic injury, when prompt medical care can be crucial to survival.
'Here To Help'
During introduction with the other volunteers, she identified herself as being from Wyoming and a Christian. She said she was surprised by the number of Jews who thought Americans hate Israel and Jews.
“I was there telling them, ‘Look, I’m here, I left everything, I’m crazy (but) I came over here to help you because God asked me to,” she said. “We don’t agree with everything, but we are here to help you. And the whole room full of Jews from all over the world start crying. That is the most astounding thing that happened to me.”
During her three weeks packing the trauma kits, sirens went off and she had to run to a bomb shelter twice.
Watkins said the base did have Iron Dome missile-defense capabilities.
While she never proselytized, Watkins had conversations with a Jewish doctor from New York with similar life experiences. She said the doctor had been nearly strangled to death and described regaining consciousness after what she experienced as a glimpse of the afterlife, including a choir singing in a language she did not understand.
She also spoke with a Jewish woman whose parents were supposed to go to a Russian gulag. The woman said her parents were set free because the owner of the factory where they worked paid the train conductor to kick them off the prison train.
Watkins shared with both her thoughts and experience and that God sent her to Israel to let them know: “There is a God, and He loves you.”
The Book
When Watkins returned to the U.S., she said she felt the need to put her adventure in words. Those experiences and thoughts about Israel, its place in the world, and its people, became the basis for her book, “An American Canary In An Israeli Mine.”
It was published by Silverlight Press in December 2024.
“It wasn’t until I got there when the full horror of what happened was relayed to me,” Watkins said. “There’s a lot that our press has never covered, like you know, the gutting of pregnant women and killing the living baby … raping (women), killing whole families and burning them alive.”
Her Perspective
In her book she writes how the initial Hamas attack was only part of the plot that evidence has revealed involved Hamas fighters going on to Dimona where Israel is believed to have nuclear weapons capabilities as well as Tel Aviv.
The book also contains her thoughts on biblical prophecies related to Israel and why America needs to support its existence.
She said she understands that books about Israel and standing with the Jewish people are a hard sell due to anti-Semitism and what she discerns as misleading media reports and campaigns against Jews.
The book opened up opportunities for her to spend time meeting Jewish groups in Wyoming. In Jackson, she joined others in the town center and waved American and Israeli flags to raise awareness about the nation’s right to exist and defend itself.
In Cheyenne, she shared thoughts about the need for America to maintain its ties to Israel at a synagogue.
Watkins who has lived and worked in California and Arkansas arrived in Wyoming seven years ago after coming to visit her sister who then resided at a dude ranch outside Pinedale.
She has no current plans to return to Israel but is open to returning if she understands a divine call and purpose. Watkins firmly believes that America should never turn its back on the nation.
“Israel’s still there because they are God’s beloved children,” she said. “My deep-seated feeling is that the day that America deserts Israel is our curse.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
