Sunday, August 20, 1995

Delegitimization of a species - the Death of Ideals


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.
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     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.



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