(Continued from p.10)
Let us just ask the same question of Jewish leaders who are so obsessed with history. Did they give every possible assistance to Israel, in particular against the Arab aggressors? The answer is, some did, but most did not. Jewish leaders who mull over history should dwell on how future history will treat their abandonment of Israel.
Israeli police, it seems, recently gave safe escort to roughly 500 Israeli Arabs who marched to their "homelands" in northern Israel. They carried posters which denounced the "Day of Infamy" when their lands were appropriated by invading Israelis. Israel's Arabs, as several marchers agreed, live quite well and have access to the ballot and to all Israel's advanced social institutions. To call Israel's independence "infamy" strikes me as seditious, particularly since the event, ominously, took place in the pre-1967 borders.
This march, in addition to infuriating me, led me to wonder why Israel's citizens, particularly those who are now barred from their ancient patrimony in Jericho, Hebron, Bethlehem, do not march to Hebron carrying placards decrying the "infamy" of Oslo. I suspect that one of the reasons is that Israeli police would not give them the same courtesy they extend to Arabs.
On April 9, the New York Times featured a story about America's Ambassador to Egypt, Daniel Kurtzer, whose arrival in Cairo evoked hostility and anti-Semitism in Egypt's government controlled media. The response ranged from thinly veiled taunts about a kosher kitchen to outright offensive cartoons depicting Mr. Kurtzer, who is an observant Jew, as a hasid with a black hat and sidecurls. He was, the Times informs us, "hurt" by the lack of a warm welcome. My own response is that it serves him right.
Kurtzer belongs to a perfidious group of Jewish State Department types who hone their Diaspora credentials by being tough on Israel. They drop their trousers when confronted by Mideast thugs such as Saddam, Arafat, and Saudi kinglings, but they snarl at Israel's leaders when they are reluctant to abandon their legitimate and historical rights. Their little club, whose members include Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, and Aaron Miller, are part of the "ethnic is in" crowd who preen their Jewishness even as they willfully abandon Israel. Even those in Egypt who defended Kurtzer cite his role in "understanding" Arab concerns.
What the New York Times failed to mention
is that Egypt's press, which is 100% controlled by the
government, continually prints anti-Semitic
cartoons and the streets are covered with anti-Semitic graffiti.
Why the surprise? And, furthermore, where is
President Clinton's outrage at the insult to an American
diplomat? It seems that outrage is only reserved for
any act of self-defense mounted by Israel.
Ruth King is a member of the Executive Committee of Americans For a Safe Israel.
The Sin of Denial
(Continued from p.7)
yin to the yang of Mad Albright's latest drang
nach the "peace process."
Evidence of implacable hostility is superfluous in the face of obsessions, and in these days, at this season, the Likud has re-defined success as surrendering 'only' 11% more of Judea, incrementally, as the Arabs proffer vows of "compliance." Under these conditions, perhaps it is useful to consider and treat denial as a sin rather than a problem inviting the ministrations of social scientists.
In the 1920s, after Britain sliced "Transjordan" from the Jewish National Home and partition schemes filled the air (as they do today), a disciple of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook stated, "the Jewish people must never, Heaven forbid, cede any part of the Land. Any concession of a piece of land, whether large or small, that is blessed with the holiness of Eretz Yisrael is a form of denying connection to the land. If Moshe's denial of his homeland was wrong [in Midian], how much more so to actually give away parts of the Land, especially when it is committed by an entire public, speaking in the name of all Israel." Even if it would save some Jews from exile, Rabbi Charlop added, "it is not acceptable to cut the heart of Israel in pieces. The Land of Israel is designed to be divided up only among the Tribes of Israel."
Netta Cohen Dor-Shav used the vivid metaphor of hydroponic plants for those Jews whose deeply ingrained marginality leave them spiritually unable to root themselves in all Eretz Yisrael. These impoverished and angry souls are so mastered by fear that they vilify and undermine Jews who settle where they are meant to be. They, not the Arabs, are felt by the faithless as the worst threat because the acts and example of faithful Jews exposes their own denial and failure.
As Moses repeatedly warned, failing to fully claim the Land leads to exile and death. Israelis need to condemn and reject this sin of denial if they are to live in the land God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These men and this promise are the roots of the Children of Israel. When Jews weary of being withered tendrils blowing in the wind, they will affirm and establish these roots.
Eugene Narrett teaches English at Boston University.
May 1998 - 11 - Outpost