The Truth – Always in Reverse
Yuval Brandstetter
The Orwellian world of 1984 is full of
reverse truths. Peace is war, justice is travesty, freedom is servitude, etc. The
present discourse of Arab-Israel relations is very similar. Peace is war, terror
is always perpetrated by Israel, whereas Arab actions are freedom-fighting. The
Jews are the Nazis and the Arabs are the victims. The Jews are Goliath and the
Palestinians are the Israelites. Jews are the Romans and Jesus is a Palestinian,
Palestinians are the Philistines and the Jews are the interlopers, so that David
is Daoud, a famous Palestinian who defeated the Philistine Goliath. In this essay I would like to focus on three contemporary reversals of
truth, and where they might lead.
The Fence
The idea of a fence to separate warring
factions, a wall, ramparts, fortifications, etc. is as old as civilization. The
only man-made feature clearly observed from space, until recently, is the Great
Wall of China, a two thousand mile-long structure erected to keep the Mongols out
of fertile China. The world is replete with walls and fences erected to keep
warring parties apart: the Berlin wall, the Maginot line, the USA-Mexico border,
and the Ceuta fence. Israel has put up two major fences, high-tech, heavily manned,
full of human ingenuity, to keep the Arab masses from coming across to the holy
land, or to keep their emissaries, the Freedom Fighters (genocide carriers, make your
own choice of appellation) from creating mayhem along the northern border with
Lebanon, and the eastern border along the Jordan River. Recently it has
fortified the fence around the Gaza Strip.
Fences and walls throughout the centuries have
shown their uselessness in keeping out a determined assailant. The Mongols
breached the Great Wall, the Maginot line was circumvented, and the Berlin wall
caved in and was dismantled. Even the walls of Jericho fell to the sound of
trumpets and shofarot. Millions of Mexicans cross the USA-Mexico fence,
and the Ceuta fence is nightly swum around. Things are no different in Israel.
The northern fence has shown complete inadequacy, having seen numerous
incursions, and thousands of Katyushas, necessitating two all-out assaults to
pacify. The success of the eastern border fence is totally dependent on the
Jordanian Army partner, which is charged with preventing any pretext for letting
the Palestinian masses into eastern Palestine. The Gaza fence has proven itself
an excellent concealment behind which the rocket launchers and the sea-going
Freedom Fighters can prepare, permeable by a thousand devices which Jewish
concern for humanity provides. These necessitates daily operations beyond the
fence to nail the organizers of these penetrations.
Moreover, whereas other places such as the
USA-Mexico border, the separation by a fence is accepted as legitimate, on both
sides of the fence, in the Middle East, the Arab side sees the very idea of a
separation line, or a border, as illegitimate. No Arab state has recognized the
legitimacy of the Green Line so beloved of the Israel peace-troop. They do
legitimize it now as a bargaining chip, a starting point from which one can
start slicing. The Green Line was nothing more than a temporary cease-fire
agreement, ripe for violation as soon as it was convenient. Constant violations
were the flashpoint for the 1967 six-day campaign.
The Islamic view is even more lopsided,
delegitimizing the right of Jews to live, far less put up fences. The very idea
of a Jewish, former Dhimmi sovereign state is a blasphemy to Islamic
eyes, far less the insistence of that blasphemy on creation of borders, which
will obstruct the flow of Arabs in Dar-al Islam.
Despite these obvious shortcomings, the
Jewish Israeli peace-troop has always clung to the 1949 cease-fire lines, and to
the fence along these lines, which will separate
“Them from Us”. The original idea
of a security wall was hatched with the intention of isolating the Jewish
inhabitants of Judea and Samaria behind a wall, exposing them to Arab terror
campaign, and thereby enforcing a Jewish transfer (Ilan Tzi’on, Yedioth
Aharonoth, Seven Days supplement, April 8, 2004, pp. 27). In contrast,
the Jewish national wing has always seen the enforced separation of Judea and
Samaria as unnatural and illegal. When the opportunity presented itself, they
created Jewish habitations in those tracts of land with the same zeal which
fired the settlers of the kibbutzim and moshavim prior to 1948. The motivation
driving those Jewish sects were different, to be sure, but from the Arab Islamic
point of view they are all the same, an unholy blasphemy.
We now come to the final convolutions of
the fence idea which boggle the mind of any casual observer. The man most
identified with the annulment of a physical separation of Judea and Samaria from
Zion and Zionism is no other than the present Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. If
anyone can be equated with the Lion of Judea, it is Ariel Sharon. A city, the
largest Jewish city in Samaria, is named after him. His tendency to use
overwhelming power, break any wall, bulldoze through obstructions, is
legendary. His public encouragement for the breaching of the 1949 lines and
building a strong Jewish presence east of the Green Line is well documented.
When his own unity government defense and foreign ministers portrayed the
security fence which they co-opted as the silver bullet to cure the wave of
suicide-bomber genocide attacks assailing the Jewish state, he responded
forcefully in the negative. It was a bad idea; it would lead to geo-political
outcomes. Hunkering behind a fence allows the enemy to better prepare our
demise, it is expensive, it will do nothing to stop the suicide bombers, the
sheer size of the undertaking is beyond the modest abilities of the state, etc.
Then a revelation overcame the man. The
fence became the central pillar of a new policy, under the name of “painful
concessions”. Has senility overtaken the Old Man?
Not at all. Truth is in the reverse. To
find a solution, one must first define the problem. The problem is, according to
the humanist peace-troop, demography. There are more Arabs than Jews west of the
Jordan, if not now then in a few years. We must separate. The fence will not
change that; that is the true truth. It will not change the attitude of Arab
Islam towards Israel; that is the reality. Therefore separation is useless; that is
the real truth. Pressure is needed to force an Arab emigration. Since the
typical means of pressure allowed throughout the world are verboten to
Israel, let us take the reverse, the consensual fence, mandated by security
concern, and make that a fence of friction.
The results are obvious. The fence is an
ecological and visual monstrosity. Cities are encased in concrete, communities
sundered from roads and schools, life is strictly controlled through gates and
roadblocks. Fields are torn up, trees are uprooted, houses felled. Instead of
separation – daily confrontation with shootouts. Access to the Israeli services
– blocked. Life was miserable before, now it is even more miserable. Every
attempt to breach the fence, any explosive discovered on a child – an excuse to
enhance the friction.
This is only the beginning, since only 20%
of the projected length has been erected. This is what you asked for, and you
shall get it. Don’t like it? Move elsewhere. Sharon’s aims are being achieved
through the use of the peace-troop demands.
The reversal of truth is the truth. Some
truths are better left unsaid.
Disengagement
Recently, mainly in order to ward off the
multiplicity of peace plans, and peace initiatives, all designed to prepare
Israel for the Final Solution, Sharon has come up with disengagement.
On the surface, the notion appears
attractive, taken directly out of the peace-troop vocabulary.
“We are
here, they
are there.” The
peace-troop seems to suffer from selective amnesia. “There” used
to be under Jordanian and Egyptian and Syrian rule, which did nothing to curtail
the daily fedayeen genocidal attacks on the Jews. The PLO was formed “there”,
prior to 1967. Still, if we could amicably separate, go our different ways, act
like Abraham, we could share this land; that is the peace-troop reasoning. A New
Middle East where respect for the individual and the other community prevails.
But
“here” is not exactly
“us”, is it? United
Jerusalem is 32% Arab, the Galilee is 50 % non-Jews, the Negev is 30% Bedouins,
with the highest fertility rate in the world, and on the periphery of the Jewish
demographic core of the coastal region there lurk a million Arabs in Taibe, Baka,
the Irron Valley, Gisr-a-zarka, Fureidis, etc. Disengagement is apparently but a
catch word.
The truth is in the reverse. Disengagement does
not really mean seamless separation. It really means further friction. The
first phase of the disengagement is a pullout from Gaza. Does anyone seriously
think that when Gaza becomes Judenrein, the Arabs will be content? Not on
your life! Gaza, strangled against the sea and the Philadelphia Road Corridor on
the southern border, will explode with
warfare activity. Once it is mildly sovereign, free from the daily activity of
the IDF inside this territory, the production of rockets and launchers and
explosives and Shahids will increase exponentially. This will drive
their cohorts in Judea and Samaria to do the same, so as not to be outdone. The
Philadelphia Corridor will be attacked like never before, causing an outcry for
abandonment. The Prime Minister will cave in. Gaza will then be open to Sinai.
The IDF will maintain a constant pressure on the sources of warfare, using all
means. Militants from Judea and Samaria, instead of incarceration in Israeli
prisons will be remitted to the care of the combined PLO-Hamas entity forming in
Gaza. They will foment further confrontations and warfare, and will force the IDF to escalate the war.
Need we say more?
A number of Jewish habitations in Samaria
may be abandoned to the PLO as a sop to the American pressure. Does anyone truly
think they will be taken over by peaceful farmers? How many times has Israel
withdrawn from Arab-populated cities in Judea and Samaria, only to retake them
due to security concerns a few weeks later? Genocidal ideation knows no vacuum.
In fact, such withdrawals will encourage the more lethal elements to ply their
trade, necessitating a forceful IDF response, inclusive of house razing,
uprooting of greenery harboring the militants, and all other means to signal the
local population to emigrate. Because the truth is, terror is not the problem, demography is the problem, and the solution can only be found by applying
reverse truth.
In the spirit of reverse truth, it behooves
the Nationalist Right of Israel to oppose the Prime Minister’s plans as
vigorously as they can, hoping they fail, and thereby win.
Jerusalem “Israeli” Arabs in Iraq
The notion of reverse truth is, as
previously stated, too mind-boggling for most. Sharon, the most perspicacious
leader-politician Israel has ever had, has a complete grasp of it. Others,
such as MK Dr. Yuval Steinitz, do not. The case in point is the two Arabs who
happen to possess Israeli documentation due to their United Jerusalem residence.
Caught in Iraq by some Mujahiddin
group, they were accused of being Israeli spies, sent by Mossad. The question
immediately asked by the Israeli peace-troop media is: Will Israel treat them
with the same concern shown for a “true” Israeli, a former colonel turned
drug-dealer, for whose freedom Israel paid dearly in various concessions?
The true response, spoken confidently by MK
Steinitz, with a total disregard for the principle of reverse truth, was that
Israel is not concerned with the fate of some Arabs who happened to carry
Israeli documentation, now held up by their Arab brethren.
At face value this is an incredibly crass
and unjust utterance which should paint the proclaimer in the worst possible
colors. It portrays the government and the parliament of Israel as racist,
philistine, and down-right insensitive to the plight of human beings, just
because they are not Jewish. In a world where perception is reality, the
perception of such attitude is stunningly ugly. Would Dr. Steinitz like a
senator from the United States to say that the fate of a Jewish American
journalist caught and murdered in Pakistan is of no concern to the USA because
he is not a Protestant?
Moreover, this public attitude leaves the
Palestinian Authority at the apex of the moral high ground. They are
concerned with Arabs, though they carry Israeli documentation, thereby garnering
media sympathy.
Further, the detainees, and their families,
strenuously denounced all and any connection with Mossad, or anything Israeli.
Therefore, if MK Yuval Steinitz is truly unconcerned with their fate, he should
state the reverse. He should outdo all others with public concern for their
fate, affirm the allegiance of the State of Israel to all its citizens, of all
colors and creeds, and thereby actually extricate himself and the parliament he
speaks for from a sticky situation, letting the chips fall where they may.
This is the Middle East; the reverse truth
is the truth.