I sit in front of the television and watch the disturbing images from Sderot. Frightened residents seeking to flee to Eilat pile into a long line of buses funded by billionaire Arcadi Gaydamak. The pressure, the pushing, the mass flight. In a single word, shame.

The pictures on television said it all. The shame of being a resident of the State of Israel, whose great army cannot provide a minimum of personal security. The shame of living daily in the shadow of the Qassams, which are nothing more than primitive metal pipes filled with explosives. The shame in the knowledge that a great army with a very great budget cannot deal with a few terrorists and some flying pipes.

It is the same shame I felt while walking around the streets of Haifa during the war in Lebanon. I saw the empty streets and the frightened inhabitants. The fear can be overcome, but the real pain is the humiliation. Running to the bomb shelters a few times a day, knowing that the State of Israel does not truly want to win the war. Going underground like frightened animals, knowing that within a few days Hassan Nasrallah will hold huge victory parades in the streets of Beirut and rearm as if nothing had happened.

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The humiliation lies in the knowledge that in Jerusalem sits a government that is responsible for your security, but in practice sees only to its own survival.

This failure is expressed chiefly in an army whose top ranks view the country from the fifth floor of the big, grandiose towers of army headquarters in Tel Aviv. Where is Rafael, the Israel Armaments Authority? Where are the military industries that were once the pride of the state? Where are the billion-shekel budgets going and what are they worth when a small boy in Sderot cannot go to school without being afraid of being killed by a flying pipe?

The pictures on the television said it all: the shame of Israelis searching for the billionaire who will allow them to escape from Sderot by bus; if he had given them a plane, they would have escaped from the country. If the state cannot protect the Jewish community then it should not be surprised when its inhabitants flee to Eilat.

The weekend newspapers asked how it was that Gaydamak always outpaces the government and helps residents to flee. But the main question should have been: Why do they have to flee? Why is the government unable to provide them with security and tranquillity?

If I were a Palestinian I would be sitting in front of the television screen, watching Israelis flee, and I would vote for Hamas again in the next election. Only Hamas is capable of driving the Jews out of Eretz Israel. Only Israel's impotent cabinet ministers are incapable of providing a solution to the shame.

The person who was unmoved when Katyushas were being fired into Kiryat Shmona is the same person who did not care when Qassams were being fired into Gush Katif, the same person who continued to drink espresso when the Zalzels were fired into Haifa and the same person who is not bothered by the Qassams and the fatalities in Sderot.

It is only the first Katyusha that will be fired from the ruins of the evacuated West Bank outpost of Amona that will change the rules of the game. Until then, everything will remain as it was. And that is a humiliation in itself - the fact that there are residents of the state who are more equal and residents who live with the feeling that their lives are "less equal."

The great majority of Tel Aviv's residents do not see the development towns in the country's periphery and do not really care about them. The Mizrahim in the development towns and the more recent immigrants from Russia and Ethiopia are the "safety belt" that protects Tel Aviv. They will absorb the Qassams, the Katyushas and the explosives of the suicide bomber while life goes on as normal in Tel Aviv. They will continue to provide material for the satirical sketches of "It's a Wonderful Country" on television.

We have become an apathetic country - every man for himself, without social solidarity or concern for others. Instead of a single, united people, we have turned into a collection of groups of people, each of which looks out only for itself. Out of sight, out of mind. It is true with regard to the indifference in Tel Aviv when Qassams are fired into Sderot, and it is true when the captains of industry fire dozens of workers and no one says a word on their behalf.

Today, there is no Jewish people and no Israeli people. There is a divided society, each group concerned only with its own interests, and anyone who is able to is securing a return ticket to Germany in the event that the Qassams reach his doorstep, too.

The author is the editor of the De'ot Hebrew Web site (www.yesha.org.il) and a leader among young Likud activists.