Greetings
from our corner of the Middle East, where all hell has recently broken loose.
Terrorized,
anguished and depressed, frustrated, angry….each emotional tidal wave competing
with the other for domination over my heart and head…none prevail, I am
drowning in the boiling ocean which is all of them combined.
There is a
missile alert every hour somewhere near my home. In Tel Aviv, its worse. My son
and I stopped our car in the middle of the street today and rushed to a nearby
corridor as the piercing siren went off…a few minutes later we heard three loud
booms that shook the walls. In the south of Israel it’s unbearable. Their lives
have come to a standstill, their livelihood crushed; they spend most of their
time in bomb shelters. A large part of the missiles are intercepted by our
defense system, but not all. Every civilian is a target, our children are
traumatized ,the emotional scars irreversible.
And the tunnels, dug
underground, reaching the very doorstep of some of the Kibbutzim on the Gaza
border…in the dark dungeons of my nightmares I imagine what they are intended
for: smuggling, kidnapping, torturing, murdering…. !
Our soldiers are on the front
line. These are our sons, the sons of our friends and neighbors, the young men
and women of this country called to duty by their government…and already,
coffins draped in the flag, tear drenched funerals, shattered lives, Kaddish…the
well known, devastating ritual.
And the
Gazans..Oh lord, the Gazans…what could possibly be more miserable and horrible
than what these people have to endure? Will their destiny be forever to suffer
under the hands of cruel tyrants? The pictures of the bleeding children, the
crying mothers in blood stained clothes, the rubble and devastation, the terror
in their eyes, 5 minutes at best to get out of your house, to run for your
lives because the bombs are falling…no shelter…the Taliban tactics of Hamas on
one side and the F16 bombers of the Israeli army on the other, these people are
clamped like walnuts, crushed by the thick metal jaws of blindness and
stupidity!….the death toll rising and rising…for God’s sake….how much longer
will this go on??
Hamas are
extremists, they are Jihadists, they are dangerous, they aim to kill every Jew
including me and my children, they do not recognize Israel, they plan to turn
all Gazans into Shahids by using them as human shields. We’ve heard Hannia and
his henchmen, and it’s probably all true, as far as there is any truth at all…
But is every
man woman and child to blame for the bitter, horrible foolery of both sides??
I listen to
Naftali Bennet speaking on CNN, coolly explaining how Hamas are terrorists and
we have every right to defend ourselves, which we do, granted…I wait,
patiently, for his sincere expression of sorrow and regret at the loss of
innocent life…but none such gesture comes. And i say to myself: have you
forgotten that you represent an entire nation? Bow your head in shame! For you have brought
the deaths of innocent people, men women and so many children…even if you did
NOT intend to! And yes, Hamas leaders continue with their horrible blood soaked
rhetoric, their cruel bravura at the expense of the miserable Gazans….they do not
hide their sinister plan! They INTEND to bring the deaths of innocent people!
No doubt there is a special place in hell for all of those, and history is full
of them. But that does not release us from the obligation to behave as human
beings, unless our aim is to metamorphose into the terrifying spitting image of
our gravest enemies.
We,
Palestinians and Israelis alike, have “never missed an opportunity to miss an
opportunity to make peace”. We have created this mess with our own two hands,
and we are paying the awful price for our arrogance and deaf foolery.
It is easy
to point fingers and become extremely self-defensive when bombs are
falling…each side huddles in his own corner, sticking with his own, blaming the
other…
My heart
goes out to the families of the victims wherever they are. I am happy to have a
strong Israeli Army to defend me against the those who clearly state their aim
is to slit my children’s throats…BUT..i do not want to use my sorrow and fear
as a shield against human empathy and clear thinking. On the contrary, I want
to do the opposite.
I want to
stand in the middle of the rink, and speak my truth.
There are
only two sides, and they are not Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs.
They are moderates and the extremists. I belong to the moderates, wherever they
are. They are my camp. And this camp needs to unite!! I have nothing whatsoever
in common with the Jewish extremists who burn children alive, who poison wells
and uproot trees, who throw stones at school children, who are motivated by
brainwashed hate and acute self-righteousness. I want to bury my head in my
hands and disappear, to the moon if possible, when I read the sermons of Rabbi
Ginsburg and Lior, romanticizing death and killing in the name of God as did
Baruch Goldstein, their sacred martyr, who murdered 29 Arabs in cold blood as
they were praying !..When I read the incredible words of racism and hate
written by some of my fellow Israelis, the cries of Joy when Palestinian
children are killed, the contempt for human life!! …The fact that we share the
same passport and religion means nothing to me. I want nothing to do with these
people.
Violent
Radical Islamists terrify me. The pictures of how they torture and behead, kill
and destroy, their indescribable cruelty and their abominable treatment of
women are horrifying to say the very least. But their wrath is directed not
only against me but against the moderates in their own society….thus
making us all brothers in arms!
Just as I
urge the Arab moderates wherever they are to do everything in their power to
shun extremism, I have no intention of blinding my eyes to the responsibility
that must be taken by my side for the fiasco that is now occurring. Radical
Islam is a dangerous phenomenon that must be dealt with not only by Israel, but
by the entire world. But there are in the Muslim world more moderate voices,
there are partners for dialogue! Have we done everything in our power to
reach out to them?
The answer
is NO.
Contrary to their once-upon-a-time “two state”
declarations, the present government lead by Netanyahu has done everything in
its power to suppress any attempts at reconciliation. It has weakened and
insulted Abu Mazen, leader of the more moderate PLO, who has stated again and
again that he is interested in peace. I heard him say it myself, first hand,
after having been invited by the PA to Ramallah together with many other
Israeli peace activist, for a lecture and Q and A session with the prime
minister (an incredible act within itself, when you think that just a decade
ago Israelis could go to jail for having any contact whatsoever with Fatah!).
When talks seemed to be somehow progressing, Abu Mazen was demanded to
recognize Israel as the Jewish State, though agreements with Egypt and Jordan
were made without that demand. When he replied that The PA recognized the
sovereignty of the state of Israel, but that any other sub-titles were an
internal Israeli issue, he was accused of non-compliance. When Abu Mazen made
statements about the Holocaust, calling it the greatest tragedy in human
history, Netanyahu sneered and belittled him. The government has disrespected
agreements they themselves signed with the PA, refusing at a whim to release
prisoners they already agreed to release, preferring to continue the outrageous
and infuriating building in the settlements as if no talks were being held.
It’s like slapping someone in the face, again and again, while at the same time
innocently saying: “let’s make peace! Don’t you see how much I want peace? Why
aren’t you cooperating??”
And what of
the Arab League’s peace initiative? Why has it been consistently and
recurrently ignored but the Israeli government? Just recently, in an
unprecedented act of good faith, a very prominent official from Saudi Arabia
wrote an article in an Israeli Newspaper, expressing his wish for peace!! It
went virtually unnoticed! (For this, the media too are to blame in their biased
choices of what is deemed fit to print, and fit to emphasize. They have an
important and destructive role in the “no partner for peace” folly).
I wonder, what
crazed messianic forces blind the eyes of these politicians and their constituency?
What biblical Joshua-syndrome? What are they thinking to themselves, that they
will slowly but surely dominate the occupied territories until there will be no
way to create the Palestinian state? What of all the Palestinians who live
there, their aspirations, their history? What of their well-being, their
dreams, hopes, future?? Will they
simply live happily ever after as second class citizen, or maybe convert
en-mass to Judaism? What is the plan??
There is no
plan, there is no vision that is morally compatible with universal values,
intent on procuring co-existence: or at least none that is being articulated coherently
to our people. In its place, we are being fed constant fear and paranoia, fanning
the flames of nationalism, cultivating xenophobia and racism. De facto, these
policies are deteriorating Israel to an ideological and strategic point of no
return.
Only
dialogue from a place of respect and empathy can save us. Only a concerted effort
to strengthen the moderates and thus marginalize, as much as possible, the
radicals, can afford us some hope.
As much as we in Israel justifiably despise
Hamas, it does not look like they are going anywhere. Have we seriously
considered the conditions they pose for a cease fire? Many of them make sense!
Why not attempt to alleviate the suffering of the Gazans, enable them to flourish
economically, return dignity to their lives and gain a 10 year cease fire…10
years is a long time! Young minds can be opened; even modest prosperity can be
the catalyst of change! Why assume automatically that these years will be used
ONLY to strengthen Hamas military power? The conditions include international
supervision. Maybe the years will create a reality in which Hamas, with a
younger generation of leaders who see a different horizon, be drawn into the
Political circle in a way that will, finally, enable dialogue??
I ask
myself: why don’t we surprise ourselves! Netanyahu, you are
known to be a clever man: why not go 180 degrees, change the rules of the game,
think out of the box? Welcome Abu Mazen, strengthen him in the eyes of his
people, think together with him of creative solutions, stop the building in the
settlements, support the unity government, open Gaza and enable commerce with
international supervision, embrace the Palestinian’s aspirations alongside our
own, welcome international intervention, especially the Arab League, and gain a
real ally AGAINST the waves of extremism?? Check mate!
Have we
really made every effort to do all this before sending our young men to die? Sadly,
we have not.
No one is dismantling the Israeli Army anytime
soon, and it should remain strong. But why are we so stubbornly refusing to
take this calculated risk, and rather, choosing to sacrifice our children??? It
is beyond my comprehension.
In Akedat
Yitzchak, Abraham, father of Judaism and Islam, was commanded by God to
sacrifice his son. Finally, God intervened and saved the boy. Where is God
now?? Has he been stunned to numbness by the abomination of his sacred
teachings, by all extremists on both sides???
If we refuse
to recognize each other’s rights and embrace our obligations, if we continue to
each cling to his own narrative with contempt and disregard for that of the
other, if we again and again choose swords over words, if we sanctify land and
not the lives of our children, we shall soon be forced to truly seek a colony
on the moon, for our land will be so drenched in blood and so cluttered with
tomb stones there will be nothing left for the living.
I wrote
these words, and sang them together with my friend Mira Awad. They stand truer
than ever today:
“when I cry,
I cry for both of us,
My pain has
no name.
When I cry,
I cry to the merciless sky and say:
There
must be another way”
Noa, july
22, 2014
