Eugene Narrett
In its jubilee year, the State of Israel is in trouble. Perhaps this is so because, as Netta Cohen Dor-Shav and others suggest, many Jews have ingrained feelings of being marginal and so welcome any solution, even surrender to homicidal enemies, as a way to terminate the anxieties attending these feelings. Some of those broken inside maintain a facade of strength by exulting in the cause of the enemy and attacking the most cherished beliefs of their own people, especially the strong among them.
There is a straightforward response to these wounds of the spirit, a therapy that does not require lengthy work in office or study. It is a simple principle that rouses and strengthens the will to enact it. First consider a few current symptoms of the lethal malaise, then the practical remedy.
A particularly sad feature of Israel's distemper is institutionalized attacks on Jews who seek equal treatment by Israeli law. Judicial punishment and police entrapment of Jews wishing to pray on the Temple Mount is so common it is scarcely remarked. More ominous are police protocols (exposed in late March) that brand all Jewish citizens of Judea-Samaria-Gaza "law breakers" or "rioters" who may be detained without arrest or cause and held for unlimited periods for interrogation. Formulated under the Rabin government, the protocols instruct the police to prepare "open warrants" in advance "for every reason and necessity." Transportation Minister Shaul Yahalom noted in a March 31 letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu that this mandate is illegal and put Jews in Judea and Samaria "on a target list" as "criminals" against whom police and lawyers are instructed to pursue "priority" and "severe" action.
Why expect the Arabs to do differently? Late in March, the Preventive Security Force of Jibril Rajoub arrested and kidnapped to Ramallah 14 officials of the Transportation Ministry. Then, two Census Bureau workers were similarly abducted. These acts followed Rajoub's announcement that any Jew who entered a Palestinian Authority area "to harm" an Arab "will not leave alive.
These periodic assertions of sovereign police
authority by the PA rest on the foundation of a growing
intelligence database. On March 26, Yediot
Ahronot reported that the PA has been spying on 143 Jewish
communities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, assisted by
officials in the US consulate in Jerusalem, Peace Now,
and Arabs who work or shop in the communities. This
includes data on security arrangements and on the personal
lives and schedules of individual citizens. The dossiers
are stored in Orient House, the PA's illegal Jerusalem
headquarters, that Israel seems incapable of closing. The
failure to simply bulldoze it reflects that fatal "tendency
to passivity," the spiritual paralysis that overwhelms
some people in the face of clear and present danger. The PA
derided criticism of its spying as "another Israeli
attempt to besmirch the name of the head of the Preventive
Security Force," adding it only keeps data on
"right-wing extremists," not unlike Jewish police. As with the
police-IDF rules for Judea-Samaria-Gaza, the state's failure
to act against Rajoub reflects a suicidal bias against its
own heartland. "I am sure that if an archive half this size
with information on Tel Aviv existed, the Mossad long
ago would have acted against it," noted an officer of the
Yesha Council.
Consider two examples of this bipartisan
madness. In the first, the details are trivial but the
principle deadly. At the end of March, a group of Jewish
children (ages 11-13) in Hebron were arrested by Jewish
police. Their crime was having a snowball fight with Arab
kids. On the morning of April 2, a group of Jews
exercising their right to pray at the tomb of the biblical judge
Otniel ben Kenaz was accosted by PA police and told to
leave immediately. "If you smile," said one Arab, "we will
kill you." When one of the Jews pointed out that their
prayer was permitted by the Hebron accords, another Arab
replied, "if you were settlers, we would have killed you
already." When the worshippers retreated to the
Jewish ghetto in Hebron, they were detained by Jewish police.
Like a black hole in the spirit, victimhood seems to exert
an irresistible pull on many Jews. Violent acts or
threats are sufficient for Jewish authorities to restrict
Jewish rights. Arab riots on "Land Day" prompted Israel not
to assert its considerable power but to bar Jews
from Joseph's Tomb and the synagogue in Jericho and to
close the trans-Samaria highway, a response which
indicates to the Arabs that violence will get them what they want.
Palestinians from the classroom to the Knesset have no reason to hold their peace. Thus, MK Abdel Daroushe (United Arab List) publicly states that "Cairo and Amman's treaties with Israel are nothing more than temporary cease fires" (at least he tells the truth). He then called on Israeli Bedouins to "throw away their uniforms and join the ranks of their own nation." Treason is no bar to Arab service in Parliament. PA children's TV programs picture little Arabs asserting they will become "suicide fighters, and walk the streets of Jerusalem in uniform, carrying my rifle as a fighter of jihad." Another segment praises "those who perform acts of glory, who do shihada" (suicide attacks). Arafat continues to publicly praise Yiyhe Ayyash and other terrorists as "great heroes." "We are all candidates for this," he stated. The "Black Panther" terrorist units of Fatah, the PLO wing under Arafat's direct control, were publicly re-activated on March 26. "We are ready for a military confrontation," they affirmed. The PA's Minister of Communications, Imad Falouji warned, "a Palestinian explosion is on the way,"
(Continued on p.11)
May 1998 - 7 - Outpost