It is sad to live in Israel at present. Our prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is still in a coma and showing little sign of improvement; Hamas, a terrorist organization intent on wiping us off the map, won the Palestinian elections; and we had still not recovered from the disengagement from Gaza when the violence of the evacuation from Amona shook us to the core.
It is one thing to fight your enemies in a war situation, quite another to witness Jews fighting Jews, especially at the instigation of our government and its leaders.
Over the centuries we have survived exile, persecution, pogroms, Crusades, expulsions, forced conversions and martyrdom but, until now, the Jewish people remained strong in spirit. Jews care about each other. This has been our survival system.
But now we are a society split into “us” and “them,” the “them” being the settlers, the Jews of Judea, Samaria and until recently Gaza. For years the settlers have been abused by the media, disgraced and demonized at every opportunity despite the fact that they are today’s heroes. They sacrificed their safety and comfort to reclaim the ancestral Land of Israel.
Our society is on the edge of an abyss. At least when we disengaged from Gaza, the security forces acted with empathy and compassion, some soldiers even embracing and crying with the settlers they had to evacuate. It is a terrible blot on our conscience that those evacuees still have not been permanently housed or compensated even though they lost their community, their homes, their land, and often their jobs. They were pioneers, and most had also served as soldiers in Israel’s wars. Today, betrayed and alienated, they have been stripped of their dignity.
And what have we gained? Certainly not gratitude from the Palestinians, who continue to fire off rockets at every opportunity. The more we appease them, the weaker we are perceived to be.
A study of our history teaches us that Israel became a nation two thousand years before the rise of Islam. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as Palestinians years after the establishment of the state. In 1948, they were encouraged to leave Israel by their leaders who promised to purge the land of Jews. Nearly seven out of ten left without even seeing an Israeli soldier. The number of those who left is estimated to be about the same as the number of Jewish refugees forced to flee from Arab lands (approximately 630,000).
When we talk about the peace process, we should first study the Koran. To us, peace means “beating our swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.” To Islam: “It is permissible to make a treaty with non-Muslims only at certain timessuch as when you are proceeding towards their subjugation.” In Chapter 9, it allows peace for four months, then “when the sacred months are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them.” Muslims denote people of any other faith as infidels and idolaters.
We tend to forget that under the 1947 Partition Plan, the Palestinians were given their own state. Their reply was to attack Israel with all the force they could muster.
Today “the enemy” is harder to define. It seems to be anyone who doesn’t agree with us. Amona was the lowest point I can remember in the 34 years I have lived here. “The settlers” were mostly represented by religious youth in their teens, imbued with Zionist values and ideology, who believe this land was promised to us by God. Did they deserve the violence that was unleashed on them? Men on horseback wielding batons, cracking skulls? You have seen the footage, I am sure.
