The 5 items begin tonight with 3 pieces of positive news.
The first of these is from Matthew Taylor, an activist with Jewish Voice for Peace, and one of the 5 who disrupted Bibi Netanyahu’s speech in New Orleans. Matthew argues that not those who censure Israel for its policies and acts are “misguided,” but those who support them.
Items 2 and 3 are about petitions—2 from “leftists” urging Israel to reposses the homes in East Jerusalem that were occupied by Jews, who kicked out their Muslim tenents, claiming (with the support of the court) that they originally belonged to Jews. I doubt that the State will listen or act on this, but am glad to see that someone is thinking ahead, although it probably will produce no change, at least not for the present.
Item 3 is a petition by Israeli artists protesting the threat to revoke funding for those who boycott performing in the OPT. This new threat apparently is sufficient enough to bring on board even some who originally had opposed the boycott of performing in Ariel.
In item 4 Gideon Levy reports on what is occurring in Safad, in which Jewish fundamentalism is winning out. At this rate, Israel is going to end up a theocratic state, ruled by Jewish fundamentalist rabbinical rigor—not everyone’s cup of tea by any means. Israel is clearly illegitimizing itself.
The final item is Uri Avnery’s take on the current opinions on peace most popular in Israel.
All the best,
Dorothy
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1. Haaretz,
November 12. 2010
Just who is misguided?
What’s next? We young Jews don’t back down, our numbers are growing and we will win. Israel will change its cruel, self-destructive behavior.
When North American Jews gathered in New Orleans for their annual General Assembly earlier this week, the mainstream Jewish establishment unveiled a new initiative to counteract the growing international condemnation of Israel’s policies of occupation and land theft. The big plan: delegitimize the delegitimizers.
The Jewish Federations of North America announced at the conference that over the next three years they will invest $6 million to launch an “Israel Action Network.” Based on speakers’ comments at the GA, the strategy seems to be to tar and feather virtually anyone who supports any form of boycott, divestment or sanctions (BDS ) as a “delegitimizer” who is participating in an alleged plot to “destroy the State of Israel.” Instead of spending millions to persuade Israel to change its path, the JFNA prefers to shoot the messengers.
Meanwhile, a few days before the assembly, the U.S.-based advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP ) convened a gathering of young Jews from the U.S. and Israel to explore difficult questions that the mainstream leadership seems eager to avoid, such as: How does the occupation delegitimize Israel? When Israel bulldozes Palestinian homes, uproots olive trees, and builds roads designated for settlers only, is that consistent with the Jewish value of respecting your neighbor?
This young group of Jewish activists seems to be an embodiment of Peter Beinart’s recent essay in The New York Review of Books, which explored why Israel’s oppressive policies cause young American Jews to feel alienated. “[Many American Jews have] imbibed some of the defining values of American Jewish political culture … a skepticism about military force, a commitment to human rights … They did not realize that they were supposed to shed those values when it came to Israel,” Beinart wrote in his piece, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment.”
Disaffected with the mainstream American leadership’s “Israel: Right or wrong” attitude, the participants at JVP’s gathering, the Young Jewish Leadership Institute, outlined a vision for engagement with the Israel/Palestine problem. “We won’t be won over by free vacations and scholarship money. We won’t buy the logic that slaughter means safety,” the group wrote in its declaration, which is posted at youngjewishproud.org.
At a GA forum entitled “Confronting Israel’s Delegitimizers,” Julie Bernstein, of San Francisco’s Jewish Community Relations Council, spoke about how to delegitimize the delegitimizers. “We need to make BDS the issue and not Israel,” Bernstein said. “What’s challenging is, we have [young Jews] on the front lines advocating for boycott, divestment and sanctions, who truly want peace, who want to help the Palestinians. They have good intentions, and they don’t know that they are essentially pawns in this game of bringing Israel down.”
On the contrary, the young Jewish progressives see BDS as a nonviolent strategy that can influence Israel to change its behavior, and bring about a just, equitable resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. They see themselves not as well-meaning idiots, as Bernstein implies, but as highly educated Jews who’ve personally witnessed the brutality of the occupation and feel a moral obligation to take action.
During the question-and-answer segment of the GA forum, UCLA law student Rachel Roberts expressed her outrage at Bernstein’s remarks. “What you said about the young, conscientious Jews who have joined with their Palestinian peers to work on divestment campaigns is so unfair and condescending,” Roberts said. Before she could say another word, a chorus of panelists and audience members interrupted and began hurling insults at her.
This dynamic of the older establishment patronizing and being condescending to the young was also palpable in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to the GA on Monday. Before Netanyahu could even spit out the word “delegitimize,” the first in a succession of five young Jews rose from her seat and unfurled a large white banner that read, “The loyalty oath delegitimizes Israel.” Other protesters followed with “The siege of Gaza delegitimizes Israel” … “Silencing dissent delegitimizes Israel.”
Netanyahu had sharp words for the protesters. “Attempts by our enemies and their misguided fellow travelers to delegitimize the Jewish state must be countered,” he said to thunderous applause.
I’m one of the five who was dragged out, clutching a sign that said, “The occupation delegitimizes Israel.” When I envision Israel ending settlement expansion and living in equality with the Palestinians – while Netanyahu’s government confiscates more Palestinian land and builds more settlements every single day – I wonder who is misguided?
The fifth and final protester, Rae Abileah, a Jewish American activist of Israeli descent, stood up and proclaimed: “The settlements betray Jewish values.” Members of the crowd tackled her, shoved a towel in her mouth, and then chanted “Bibi, Bibi, Bibi” in unison.
Gandhi said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” In the case of Israel and the tone-deaf American Jewish establishment, one could revise this statement to: First they ignore you, then they call you a self-hating Jew, then they call you a delegitimizer and fight you with $6 million.
What’s next? We young Jews won’t back down, our numbers are growing, and we will win. Israel will change its cruel, self-destructive behavior. We won’t rest until Israelis and Palestinians live together in true equality, safety and mutual respect.
Leftists urge Israel to repossess settlers’ homes in East Jerusalem
Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement cites legal precedent to have houses appropriated to prevent friction with Palestinians and facilitate a peace agreement.
A left-wing group will demand that the state repossess houses in East Jerusalem occupied by settlers to prevent friction with Palestinians and facilitate a peace agreement.
“It’s the state’s duty to confiscate these properties to prevent a disruption of the social fabric,” said former Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair. He was referring to houses occupied by Jewish settlers in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
Ben-Yair and other senior jurists are trying to forge a legal solution to the Sheikh Jarrah clash based on a 1999 legal opinion by former Attorney General Menachem Mazuz. The Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement intends to use the jurists’ proposal in their campaign.
Mazuz, who was deputy attorney general in 1999, said land belonging to Irwin Moskowitz, the patron of East Jerusalem settlers, may be confiscated to prevent the construction of a Jewish neighborhood in the heart of a Palestinian one. It could also be confiscated to preserve public order and avoid damage to Israel.
The opinion was given in response to a former Jerusalem affairs minister, Haim Ramon, who was looking for ways to prevent the construction of a Jewish neighborhood on land Moskowitz bought in the heart of the neighborhood Ras al-Amud.
The state is authorized to confiscate private land if activities on it could have grave implications on state affairs and public order.
“If a third of East Jerusalem can be confiscated from its Arab residents to build homogenous Jewish neighborhoods, then 14.5 dunams can be confiscated from a Jewish developer to enable the preservation of the existing fabric in Ras al-Amud,” left-wing activist Dan Zeidman wrote to Ramon at the time.
Ben-Yair, who was born in Sheikh Jarrah, said he turned down the Custodian General’s offer in 1971 to regain ownership of his grandmother’s house in the neighborhood because his family had already been compensated with the house of Palestinian refugees in West Jerusalem.
“We lived in the neighborhood until 1948, when we were ordered to evacuate it,” Ben-Yair said. After a month “my parents received two apartments in Sheikh Badr [today Romema], which belonged to Arabs who had fled to the eastern side. My grandmother also received a grocery store that used to belong to Arabs, instead of the store in Sheikh Jarrah.
“Every Jew without exception who lived in this neighborhood in 1948 was compensated with properties on the western side. So the whole story is nonsense,” Ben-Yair said, referring to settler associations seeking to resettle Jews in formerly Jewish-owned properties in East Jerusalem.
“This is another reason we must accept the results of the War of Independence, otherwise there is no chance of a peace agreement.”
Avner Inbar, a leader of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, said “the information exposed today strengthens our claim that Israel is discriminating against the Palestinians and is doing everything to evict and dispossess them.”
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3. Haaretz,
November 13, 2010
Prominent film, television artists join boycott of West Bank arts center
Media personalities sign on to internet petition protesting the threat to revoke funding for artists that refuse to perform in the newly opened cultural center in Ariel.
A group of leading Israeli film and television artists have signed onto an online petition supporting the right of theater actors to refuse to perform in the newly opened arts center in the West Bank settlement of Ariel.
“A number of Knesset members and ministers from Yisrael Beitenu and Likud and other right-wing figures are calling for cutting off funding to artists that this week called for a boycott of the cultural center in Ariel,” the online petition said.
“Threats of this type by these Knesset Members do not scare us,” the petition continued. “As Israeli citizens, the refusal of these theater actors to perform in Ariel, which is not within the borders of Israeli sovereignty, is a democratic right.”
“It is unconscionable that the resistance to the settlement enterprise, a belief shared by a substantial amount of the Israeli public, has turned into an illegitimate position that leads to slandering, silencing, and funding cuts,” said the petition.
The Ariel cultural center celebrated its official opening last week, including a performance by the Be’er Sheva theater group.
Dozens of Israeli theater figures had sent a letter to Be’er Sheva Theater actors on November 5, urging them to join their battle and boycott the newly built arts center.
In September, a group of theater actors and public figures signed a petition saying they would not perform in the new Ariel center as a protest of Israel’s settlement policies. The protest was supported by over 150 academics.
Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Sunday that he will act against the boycotting artists by halting direct funding of their travel expenses for shows abroad and by preventing their appearances before state bodies.
===========================================
4. Haaretz,
November 12, 2010
Twilight Zone / Safed, a war story
A campaign of racism and anti-Arab incitement is turning one of Israel’s holy cities into a ticking bomb
The telephone rings. “Hello, this is Mustafa, I’m calling about the apartment.” The response comes quickly and emphatically: “No, it’s already been rented.” Or, “I only rent to women,” or “I only rent to families.” Or, in an angry tone: “Heaven forbid, do you want to stop me from reading the Torah on Shabbat,” or “I’m afraid of the rabbis.”
For an entire hour, student Mustafa Shahin, a resident of Sakhnin who studies sociology and human resources at Safed College, made telephone inquiries – in vain. Because he is an Arab, the rental listings on the college bulletin boards are irrelevant. Mahmoud Abu Salah, Shahin’s representative in the student union (there are a total of eight representatives, but only one is an Arab ), says that he sometimes introduces himself on the phone as “Tomer” to get the conversation started. Now everyone has started calling Mahmoud “Tomer.” But that doesn’t mean people want to rent to Arab college students in Safed.
The city is roiling: It recently hosted an “emergency conference” of 18 rabbis and 400 of their followers on this issue. There was an armed attack on an Arab student apartment. A Jewish legal ruling was handed down by the city’s chief rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu. Mayor Ilan Shohat and veteran resident Eliyahu Tzvieli, who rented an apartment to Bedouin students, have received threats. The message is: Arabs, go home.
In response to plans for establishing a medical school in Safed, flyers were circulated last week by some sort of “campaign headquarters,” declaring: “The smokescreen called a medical school obscures an evil scheme: to establish a refugee camp for psychotic, sadistic and debased Arabs, whose deceptiveness is, and always has been, aimed at tempting [Jewish women] and cruelly abusing them. On orders of the great rabbis of Safed, may they be blessed with a long life, we declare our protest and vehement resistance, and reiterate that it is forbidden under the law of the Torah to offer these people apartments for sale, rent, work or any form of entry. Our city will not succumb to wanton behavior – go back to your own locales and do not defile our camp.”
The language of this flyer slams the Safed College Internet site, which touts “a city that blends academia, tradition, kabbala and a magical atmosphere.”
Abu Salah reads the flyer and puts it in his pocket without uttering a word. For the time being, he and his peers are showing restraint, but a time bomb is ticking here. Safed is a war story in the making.
Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria was born on Safed’s slopes, and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas was born nearby. Today, the town’s artists’ quarter is being snuffed out by ultra-nationalist zeal. On Jerusalem Street, where Safed College is located, there is a Rav Hesed supermarket; a Galgal Hakodesh store that sells Jewish religious articles; and a furniture store with a special “bride-and-groom” deal for furnishing an entire apartment for NIS 8,888.
Safed College, operated under the auspices of Bar-Ilan University, has 1,700 students, and the whole campus seems to speak Arabic. Indeed, when we visited the institution last week, it seemed to have an absolute Arab majority. The most obvious exceptions were a policeman and a prison warden, both enrolled as students, and two lecturers who wore skullcaps and ritual fringes. Strolling around the sun-drenched campus, with its olive and cypress trees, were dozens of Arab students from the Galilee. Some, but not all, of the female students wore traditional head coverings; male students had hair gel. On the lawn, next to the modest library, a student set down his jacket, and kneeled to pray in the direction of Mecca.
The whole area is full of surreal contradictions: There is the bearded driver who shouts threateningly, in Arabic, at what he calls “el Yahud [the Jews]” – a group of Arab students, who cross the street and stare at him apathetically. The campus seems tranquil, while the city seethes with racist hatred. One sees Bratslav Hasidim and newly Orthodox and other pious Jews roam the streets along with hijab-clad, traditional Muslims.
A recent editorial, titled “The Ishmaelites,” in the Hamevaser newspaper proclaimed that one of the city’s rabbis conducted an inquiry and discovered that funding from the European Union and Saudi Arabia finance the college’s Arab students.
“I wish they did support us,” reflects the student activist, Mahmoud Abu Salah, aka Tomer, with a wistful smile. He embodies several contradictions: He claims that he served in the Israel Defense Forces as an undercover soldier, yet he is the student union delegate of the “Arab sector” (an Israeli expression ), and his dream is to become the state comptroller or an ambassador. “I don’t have any problem representing the state – this is my state,” he says wanly.
Not exactly minted in the “Danny the Red” mold, the young man allowed himself to be photographed in a triumphant pose, alongside the memorial to the “Liberators” who expelled his forefathers from the city. A second-year law student who already has a degree in social work from the college, he wears preppy white shoes and a Puma belt.
Abu Salah has already resided in four apartments in Safed. At present, he is compelled to commute each day from his village because it is nearly impossible for Arabs to find a room to rent in the city. Out of the college’s 900 Arab students, he says, only a few live in rented apartments, not including the 120 who live in the dormitories.
On a recent Saturday, Abu Salah met MK Ahmed Tibi in Jenin’s market, and asked the parliamentarian not to visit the college.
“We don’t need Arab MKs here,” he explains now. “We keep things quiet on our own. I think the college should take care of things here. I don’t want to organize demonstrations; I want to keep things calm. I stay silent, but the college has to do something. That’s what I told the college president. We have never encountered racism on the campus grounds – so they [Knesset members] can come make the rounds in Safed, but shouldn’t come here.” This week Abu Salah met the Arab students’ representative at Netanya Academic College, and learned that it is also nearly impossible for Arab students in that coastal town to rent an apartment. He says he has Jewish friends who signed a rental contract in the name of Arab students. But after it was discovered, the landlord was threatened; he was told that his own house would be burned down if Arab tenants were to remain in the Safed apartment.
Abu Salah: “Rabbi Eliyahu thinks that we want to return Safed to the Arabs. They think that we want to remain in the city after our studies. But only a few [Arab students] remain here on Saturdays. An [Arab] student comes here solely for the purpose of studying. After that he’ll go anywhere, to get the hell out of here – what is there for us in such a poor town? A student spends an average of NIS 50 a day in the city, not including rent. We help Safed’s economy. I’m not even talking about the money they make from parking fees. Most come to study here, and are not looking for trouble. Nobody comes looking to compile a criminal record … They [those who object to the Arab students] want us to organize; they want to remove us from here. But we want to be smarter than that, to show them that we exist, without causing an uproar,” explains Abu Sabah.
During his studies, he says, he has been employed in two local hotels, Rimonim and Canaan Spa, working as a shabbas goy – someone who assists devout Jewish guests on the Sabbath. He has provided similar services for neighbors: “I would return home, and a neighbor would tell me, ‘It’s cold.’ At first, I didn’t get it. What was I supposed to do, warm him up? But they spoke to me with gestures, so that I’d understand what they meant and light their furnace on Shabbat.”
He also has stories of residents spitting at Arab students, and of students entering stores and being told that they were “closed.” He has heard chants on streets, like: “An Arab is a son of a bitch.” I asked him how he would respond were someone to call him a dirty Arab. “I would ask him, am I really dirty? I take a shower twice a day and dress better than you,” Abu Salah quips.
At Hummus Atika, an ultra-Orthodox waiter served a smooth, kosher version of the chickpea paste, which was actually pretty tasty. The restaurant walls were covered with colorful portraits of past and present rabbinical sages, including the late Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, father of the Safed rabbi who is spearheading the Arab expulsion.
Haaretz’s Galilee correspondent, Eli Ashkenazi, told us he heard recently from Eliyahu Tzvieli, 89, the resident who was threatened after he rented an apartment to Bedouin students, that an Arab student entered a falafel joint Tzvieli rents to a Jewish proprietor, and ordered a meal. “I’ll give you poison,” was the response. Tzvieli tried to cancel the rental contract for the falafel stand, but was unsuccessful.
The student Mustafa Shahin lived last year in rental apartments located off Safed’s main pedestrian thoroughfare, and also in the Canaan neighborhood. This year, he spends 70 NIS a day on bus travel to and from his home. He has phoned dozens of landlords, explaining, “This is Mustafa, I’m calling about the apartment.” He was always rejected.
He phones a man named Viktor, who has an apartment for rent.
“Only women,” says Viktor.
“But I live alone,” pleads Mustafa. “I don’t make trouble and keep quiet.”
Viktor responds: “I have a problem. I would take you, but there are the rabbis. They give me problems. I would rent to women, I’m not afraid, but not to men. Good luck, Mustafa.”
Then there was a “fully furnished” apartment.
“Good afternoon, this is Mustafa, I’m calling about the apartment,” the student says.
“Try calling at night, I’m driving right now,” replies the landlord.
After several more fruitless phone calls, Mustafa gives up. Some students come up to us and relate their own experiences. A college bulletin board lists some living-room furniture for sale, and a wooden kitchen cabinet. Mustafa calls up, but is told the furnishings are no longer for sale.
======================
5. [I agree to an extent with Uri Avnery that “If there is one person
who is guilty more than anyone else, it is Ehud Barak.” Barak from the start opposed the Oslo accords and voted against them. And following the Camp David disaster, he ran around braying like an ass that he had ‘torn off the mask from Arafat’s face.’ However, those who followed Barak as PM were as bad if not worse than he—particularly Ariel Sharon and now Bibi Netanyahu. Colonization, not peace, is the name of the game. Dorothy]
——–
Hi,
Hope this may interest you.
Shalom, Salamaat,
uri
——————————————
Uri Avnery
November 13, 2010
Vox Taxi – Vox Dei
ON SATURDAY evening, two weeks ago, we returned by taxifrom the annual
memorial rally for Yitzhak Rabin, and as usual got into a conversation with our driver.
Generally, these conversations flow smoothly, with lots of laughs. Rachel loves them,
because they bring us face-to-face with people we don’t normally meet. The convers-
ations are necessarily short, the people express their views concisely, without choosing
their words. They are of many kinds, and in the background we generally hear the radio
news, talk shows or music chosen by the driver. And, of course, the soldier-son and the
student-daughter are mentioned.
But this time, things were less smooth. Perhaps we were more provocative than usual,
still depressed by the rally, which was devoid of political content, devoid of emotion,
devoid of hope. The driver became more and more upset, and so did Rachel. We felt
that if we had not been paying customers, it might have ended in a fight.
THE VIEWS of our driver can be summed up as follows:
There will never be peace between us and the Arabs, because the Arabs don’t want it.
The Arabs want to slaughter us, always did and always will.
Every Arab learns from early childhood that the Jews must be killed.
The Koran preaches murder. Fact, wherever there are Muslims, there is terrorism.
Wherever there is terrorism, there are Muslims.
We must not give the Arabs one square inch of the country.
What did we get when we gave them Gaza back? We got Qassam rockets!
There’s nothing to be done about it. Only to hit them on the head and send them back to the countries they came from.
According to the Talmudic injunction: He who comes to kill you, kill him first.
THIS DRIVER expressed in simple and unvarnished language the standard convictions
of the great majority of Jews in the country.
It is not something that can be identified with any one part of society. It is common to
all sectors. The owner of a stall in the market will express it crudely, a professor will set
it down in a learned treatise with numbered footnotes. A senior army officer regards it
as self-evident, a politician bases his election campaign on it.
This is the real obstacle facing the Israeli peace camp today. Once upon a time, the discussion was about whether a Palestinian people exists at all. That’s already behind us.
After that we had to discuss “Greater Israel” and “Liberated Territory Will Not
Be Given Back”. We overcame.
Then there was the discussion about whether to return the “Territories” to King
Hussein or to a Palestinian state to be established next to Israel. We overcame.
After that, whether to negotiate with the PLO, which was defined as a terrorist
organization, and with the arch-terrorist, Yasser Arafat. We overcame. All the
leaders of the nation later stood in line to shake his hand. Then there was the quarrel
about the “price” – return to the Green Line? Swap of territories? A compromise in
Jerusalem? Evacuate settlements? That is also largely behind us.
All these debates were, more or less, rational. Of course, deep emotions were involved,
but so was logic. But how to speak with people who believe wholeheartedly that the
discussion itself is irrelevant? That it is divorced from reality?
In the eyes of our conversation partners, questions about whether it is worthwhile to
make peace or not, whether peace is good or bad for the Jews, are meaningless, if not
downright stupid. Questions which make no sense, since we are having a debate only
with ourselves. There will never be peace, because the Arabs will never
want peace. End of discussion.
WHO IS to blame for this attitude? If there is one person who is guilty more than
anyone else, it is Ehud Barak. If there existed an international court for peace crimes,
like the international court for war crimes, we should have to send him there.
When Barak won his landslide victory against Binyamin Netanyahu in 1999, he had
no idea about the Palestinian problem. He talked as if he had never had a serious
conversation with a Palestinian. But he promised to achieve peace within months,
and more than a hundred thousand jubilant people acclaimed him on the evening
of election day in the square where Rabin had been murdered.
Barak was certain that he knew exactly what to do: summon. Arafat to a meeting
and offer him a Palestinian state.
Arafat would thank him with tears in his eyes and give up everything else. But when
the Camp David conference convened, he was shocked to see that the Palestinians, evil
as they were, had some demands of their own. The conference ended in failure.
Coming home, Barak did not declare: “Sorry, I was ignorant. I shall try to do better.”
There are not many leaders in the world who admit to stupidity.
A normal politician would have said: “This conference has not borne fruit, but there
was some progress. There will be more meetings, and we shall try to bridge the differences.”
But Barak produced a mantra that every Israeli has since heard a thousand times:
“I have turned every stone on the way to peace / I have offered the Palestinians
unprecedented generous offers / The Palestinians have rejected everything /
They want to throw us into the sea /
WE HAVE NO PARTNER FOR PEACE!”
If Netanyahu had said something like this, nobody would have been impressed.
But Barak had appointed himself the leader of the Left, the head of the peace camp.
The result was disastrous: the Left collapsed, the peace camp almost disappeared.
Barak himself lost the elections by a landslide, and justly so: if there is no chance for
peace, who needs him? Why vote for him?
After all, Ariel Sharon, his adversary in the elections, was much better qualified for war.
The result: the ordinary Israeli was finally convinced that there is no chance for peace.
Even Barak said that there is no partner. So that’s that.
NO SINGLE person, even a genius like Barak, would have been able to bring about such a disaster if the conditions had not been there.
The conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians began 130 years ago.
A fifth and sixth generation have been born into it. A war deepens myths and
prejudices, hatred and distrust, demonization of the enemy and blind
conviction of one’s own righteousness. That is the nature of war. On both sides it shapes
a closed and fanatical world, which no alternative views can penetrate.
Consequently, if an Arab declares his willingness to make peace, this only confirms
that all Arabs are liars. (And conversely: if an Israeli offers a compromise, this only
reinforces the Palestinian’s belief that there is no limit to the tricks of the Zionist
Enemy, which is plotting to drive them out.)
AND WHAT is most important, the belief that “we have no partner for peace” is
extremely convenient. If there is no chance for peace, there is no need to rack
our brains about it, much less to do anything about it.
No need to waste words on this silliness. Indeed, the very word “peace” has gone out
of fashion. It is no longer mentioned in polite political society. At most, one speaks
about “the end of the occupation” or “the final status settlement” – presenting both,
of course, as quite impossible.
If there is no chance for peace, the whole matter can be forgotten. It’s unpleasant
to think about the Palestinians and what is happening to them in the “Territories”.
So let’s devote all our attention (which has a limited span anyhow) to the really
important matters, such as the squabble between Barak and Ashkenazi,
Olmert’s business affairs, the fatal road accidents and the critical state of the Lake
of Tiberias. And while we are at it, if there is no chance for peace, why not build
settlements?
Why not Judaize East Jerusalem? Why not forget about the Palestinians altogether?
If there is no chance for peace, what are all these bleeding hearts in the world lecturing
us for?
Why is Obama bothering us? Why is the UN boring us? If the Arabs want to massacre
us, we clearly have to defend ourselves, and everybody who wants us to make peace
with them is nothing but an anti-Semite or self-hating Jew.
THE HEBREW saying “The voice of the masses is like the voice of God” is derived
from the Latin “vox populi, vox dei” (“the voice of the people, the voice of God”).
It was first used by an Anglo-Saxon clergyman some 1200 years ago in a letter to
the Emperor Charlemagne, and in a negative way: one should not listen to those
who say this, since “the feelings of the masses always border on madness”.
I am not prepared to subscribe to such an anti-democratic statement.
But if we want to move towards peace, we undoubtedly have to remove this huge
rock blocking the road. We must infuse the public with another belief – the belief
that peace is possible, that it is essential for the future of Israel, that it depends
mainly on us. We shall never succeed in inspiring such a belief through routine
discussions. Anwar Sadat taught us that it can be done, but only through dramatic
actions that rock the foundations of our spiritual world.
