Delegitimization of a species - the
Death of Ideals
August 20, 1995
Friday evening Israel Television
broadcast a feature concerning the inadequacy of Hebron's water
supply. I quote from today's Jerusalem Post
editorial:
"But the fact is that many Arab residents do not get water for
days, weeks and months...At the same time, the 450 Jews living in the center of
the town and the 6,000 living in the adjacent Kiryat Arba have no problem
getting enough water, not only for basic needs but for swimming pools and large
lawns.
What the TV report failed to mention
is that until 1967 no water at all
was supplied in Hebron in the summers...
The fact is that Kiryat Arba uses no
more water per capita than Kiryat
Shmona, Kiryat Gat or any other
Jewish community in the country. It does not rob Arabs of water. Nor does the government take from Arabs to
give to
Jews...
The most notorious antisemitic
propaganda film of the 1930's, "The
Eternal Jew" features a scene which shows unemployed Germans in
mid-winter
trying to keep warm at street-corner bonfires while rich Jews enjoy the
amenities of sumptuous homes.
Friday's television show was on that
level. That it was an Israeli
production seems to confirm the claim of the Jewish residents of Judea,
Samaria, and Gaza that they have become the "Jews" of Israel:
A target of
mean-spirited generalizations, scapegoating and blind hatred. That
Environment Minister Yossi Sarid could, on the basis of such a
transparent
propaganda exercise, call Kiryat Arba "the Sodom of Israel"
casts serious
doubts on his qualifications as cabinet member, let alone his
aspirations to
national leadership."
Under the vigorous leadership of Minister of Communications, Shulamit
Aloni, the Israeli
media has reached new levels of
disparagement. The above-quoted
editorial is only one example.
Let's examine an additional one. Last week, Rabbi Moshe Levinger was crudely
arrested while
leaving the Caves of the Patriarchs
to attend and perform a wedding ceremony.
When he refused
to pay 800 Shekels demanded by the
police he was uplifted, pulled by his arms, legs, and yes, by
his beard. A Kiryat Arba resident was hit by the police
van, speeding the "criminal" to justice.
The next day, after having spent an
evening in a jail cell, Rabbi Levinger was released by a
Jerusalem Court Judge who reprimanded
the police. The payment Rabbi Levinger
was demanded
to pay was unnecessary, as was the
arrest.
Did this make the papers? Of course not!
What was headline news, both in the
newspapers and on the radio was a
derogatory remark made by one of the
people protesting
Rabbi Levinger's arrest, pertaining
to Druse soldiers and policemen.
The remark may very well have been unnecessary, but it was uttered by
one protester in
the midst of a police-pogrom. But this was the headline news. No more need be said.
Why is this happening? The
answer is very clear. I will try to
depict it for you by way of
a story that actually happened in
Jerusalem several months ago. A group,
attempting to bridge
the communications gap, invited
couples of various political leanings to participate in face-to-face
discussions. The couples were paired off and each person
was given two minutes to state his or
her views concerning Israel's present
political situation. A woman from Kiryat
Arba was given
the opportunity to begin in her group. She spoke for two minutes and them paused to
allow her
counterpart to respond. Rather than respond, the woman opposite her
just sat and looked at the
woman from Kiryat Arba. She literally could not speak. When she finally was able to overcome
her speechlessness she said, "I
can't believe that you are a
settler'."
What then is a "settler"?
Do we have horns, wings, or tails?
Do we breath fire or spit
blood? Do we feed off of vermin and cast spells
using dead cats?
This is precisely what the Israeli government, with the extended
assistance of the Israeli
media, would like the public to
think. The settlers', 150,000 Israeli's,
all of whom have two eyes,
a nose, a mouth, two arms and two
legs, ten fingers and ten toes, have been transformed into a
new species: a subhuman being,
categorized as being dangerous to the
continued well-being of
the Israeli People'.
Why? It sounds so exaggerated -
but unfortunately it's not. Why? Because we represent
the antithesis of all that Rabin,
Peres and their friends stand for. We
represent ideals, values,
moral and ethics, we represent an
Israel that doesn't fit in with their convoluted perceptions of a
"new Switzerland in the Middle
East". We represent the Jews of
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
Aharon, Joseph and David. We represent the Jews who want to be
Jews. For Rabin and Peres
we really are "the Jew",
mentioned in the Jerusalem Post editorial.
And we represent the greatest
threat possible to the "new
world order" which Rabin and Peres see as an integral part of the
future of the Jewish People.
So, you see, they have no choice but to dehumanize us, to create a new
species of being, a
sub-Jew. But there is one thing they don't know - that
they are wrong. We are not a new
creation, rather we are the original
thing - the real thing - the one and only.
The original Zionists
that came over to Israel 100 years
ago, and even previous to that, had sparks of the same zeal.
They had ideals and they lived their
ideals. Had we lived at the same time
with them we probably
would not have agreed about
everything, but we would have respected each other. There were
once people, even on the right, who
respected Rabin, the "Rabin of 1967".
No more.
Rabin and Peres are trying their hardest to deal a death-blow to
ideals. They will not
succeed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Five months ago Hebron resident Nahum Hoss and Kiryat Arba resident
Yehuda Partush
Hy"d were killed by terrorists
while returning from Jerusalem. The bus
they were riding was shot
at and both were hit.
The Partush's were on their way back from having signed the contract for
their new home,
which they had just bought. Yehuda
Partush, when hearing the shots being fired, jumped on his
wife, shielding her from the
terrorist bullets. He saved her
life. She was, at the time, four months
pregnant with their fourth
child. Two weeks ago she gave birth to
their son - their first boy. She
named him Avi-el Yehuda - Avi-el
meaning my father is with G-d.
Rabin and Peres are no different from the same terrorists who shot and
killed Yehuda
Partush and Nahum Hoss. And our reaction to them will be similar to
our reaction to the
terrorists - they want us dead - but
we will, in spite of everything they attempt to do, continue to
live.
