The Witch's Looking Glass

The Witch's Looking Glass

January 6, 2002

Shalom.

Sometimes we lose touch with reality – attempting to see what doesn’t exist. Then, all of a sudden, we find ourselves woken up, abruptly, thrown on the floor, not by a bad dream, but by another one of those horrendous explosions. Last night, again, a ‘double suicide attack,’ each of the murderers carrying over 15 kilograms of explosives, packed with screws, bolts, nails and other assorted weaponry, designed to kill and maim. It makes absolutely no difference that many of those wounded and killed were foreign workers and not Israelis – the vicious attack was aimed at the heart of Israel, in the heart of Tel Aviv.

We need not be jolted by reality so harshly. Our enemy exploits not only bombs – he also utilizes words – we only need hear them, and then, act accordingly.

I’d like to steer your attention to two recent articles. The first appeared in this past Friday’s Ha’Aretz newspaper magazine [www.haaretz.com], written by Ari Shavit, and is called ‘Travels with Mohammed.’ Mohammad is a 34 year old lawyer. He would be described as young, modern and educated. He is also an “Arab Israeli” as opposed to a “Palestinian.”

What does he think about the State of Israel? I quote: “The Jewish public now living in the country has the right to self-determination. But one can understand why the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan in 1947. And one must understand that there is no balance of rights here. There is no balance of our right vs. your right. And
that is because at the point of departure, the Jews had neither legal right, nor historical right, nor religious right. The only right they had was the right of distress. But the right of distress cannot justify 78 percent [of Mandatory Palestine becoming Israel]. It cannot justify the fact that the guests became the masters. At the end of the day, it is the natives, not the immigrants, who have a supreme right to the country. Those who have lived here for hundreds of years have become part of the land, just as the land has become part of them. We are not like you. We are not strangers and we are not wanderers and we are not migrants. For hundreds of years, we lived on this land and we multiplied on it. Therefore, no one can uproot us from it. No one can separate it from us. Not even you.”

“If the two-state solution continues to be insisted on, autonomy in Galilee will definitely be on the agenda. And that autonomy will have to be not only cultural but territorial as well. With policing powers and effective control of the land and of the natural resources. Three autonomous areas of this kind will have to be created: in Galilee, in the Triangle and in the Negev. Palestinians living in Lod or Ramla or Jaffa will have to be given personal autonomy that will have an associative relationship to the three Palestinian cantons in the State of Israel."

Are you starting to wake up? If you’re still a little groggy, maybe this will help.

Mr. Solly Ganor, a holocaust survivor, recently posted an article [http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/814498/posts] called, “Conversation on the Beach.” This true dialogue occurred between Ganor and a twenty five year old Arab student of political science, studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It took place just outside Hertzlia, on the Israeli coast, and is quite revealing: 

Solly: “You don't think that moderation is a good idea?"

Arab student: "What has moderation ever done for us? We have been moderate long enough. We are growing weaker while you have grown stronger. It is time for us to act."

Solly: " Do you think that you were moderate up to now? Would you call five wars the Arabs launched against us, moderation? I wonder what you would call hostility?"

Arab student: " Hostility is what you are getting now. Our young people are blowing themselves up in all of your major towns, taking with them hundreds of your Israelis. President Arafat has promised you a million 'Shihads' to march on Jerusalem.  The march has already begun, and it won't be thanks to Arafat. He is another old bungler. Things are changing. Until now you had the upper hand, but no more! Our "Shihads,"  are the answer to your atomic bombs. If necessary, one "Shihad" can be an atomic bomb, here in Israel, in America, in Europe, or anywhere the Jews and the Crusaders live. We don't need millions of dollars worth of sophisticated labs and expensive scientist. What we have is cheap and efficient. That is because we are not afraid to die.  We have finally found your soft underbelly, your Achilles Heal. You Judeo-Christians worship the sanctity of life, while we don't mind dieing for Islam"

Solly: " Do all the Arab students studying at the Israeli universities share your views?"

Arab student: " Absolutely! A few may be oriented towards the West, but the overwhelming majority are for the new emerging Renaissance of Islam. You might as well enjoy the beautiful view from while you can. You won't be able to do so for long. If I were you, I would pack and leave for safer countries."

There are those of us who, familiar with the Arab mind, who didn’t need either of these two articles to be well aware of the truth. There are others of us who, even upon reading these articles, will not take them seriously.  What do they take seriously? Twenty-three dead and over a hundred wounded? Last night’s terror put us over the 700 dead mark: The Oslo War has cost us 717 deaths and over 5,000 wounded.

So where does that leave us: Speaking of Arab return to Israel, Mohammed says, “I don't know how many there will be. Certainly not millions, maybe hundreds of thousands. But I see them returning. In the same way that my family slid back on the slopes of the Turan ridge with their mules and belongings after a few months of exile, the others will also return. It will be a long convoy of returning people.”

Our lesson to be learned?  Gazing into the witch’s looking glass, believing that everything we see is pretty, is killing us.

With blessings from Hebron,

This is David Wilder