by Dror Eydar
Last Thursday, an
article by analyst Amnon Abramovich entitled "Between Camus and Nir Am"
graced the ragged news stands of Brooklyn, on the front page of the very
newspaper that forcefully pushed the Gush Katif communities toward
destruction, and which today mostly regales us with stories.
So, one of the tunnels
that Hamas dug and reinforced with the humanitarian cement Israel handed
over under the pressure of "human rights" groups (not Jewish rights)
just about reached Kibbutz Nir Am, which Abramovich's parents helped
establish. When it hits close to home, the sense of alarm is greater.
"Kibbutz Nir Am was founded on rocky soil, upon which no man had ever set foot, and not a single Arab was dispossessed of it."
Did you hear, dear
terrorists, that this land wasn't stolen? Moreover, the land in question
is rough terrain, in which you have no interest, but we made it bloom.
This is not Judea and Samaria, and these are not settlers. Don't you get
it?
They get it, all right.
From the perspective of the Arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria or the
rest of the crazies in the Middle East, there's no difference between
Nir Am and Habima Square in Tel Aviv, Ariel and Talmon.
"The land of Palestine
has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of
Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or
part of it. We cannot forfeit it or any part of it, give up on it or on
any part of it," reads the Hamas charter (Clause 12). Still, we must
discuss "a political arrangement."
Well, here you go:
"There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by jihad. The
initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of
time, an exercise in futility" (Hamas charter, Clause 13).
"Moderate" Fatah
meanwhile, upholds the Palestinian National Covenant (which has never
been rescinded), and Clause 20 states: The Jews are not a nation, but
rather a religion (unlike the Palestinian nation which has existed since
the Big Bang). Religions cannot claim for themselves either land or
country. Just this week, we saw how Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas' grandson was educated by his father, who said the demand
to return to Safed was valid and relevant.
Nevertheless,
Abramovich should tell his friends why he has situated himself alongside
the Israeli Right (sort of) during the current war. For that reason, he
recruited author Albert Camus, who according to Abramovich wrote
against French control of Algeria (yet again, the foolish comparison of
our home, our lifeblood, with Algeria, which wasn't French at all),
though the opposition hid bombs in the buses in which his mother
traveled. "If that is justice, then I prefer my mother."
Come on. If Camus said it, then Abramovich can also be a nationalist, even just for a moment.
But here is Camus for
advanced students, and he is speaking directly about the international
and Israeli Left. In Camus' book, "The Plague," the city of Oran in
Algeria is overrun by a plague. The city represents global civilization,
which was under siege at the time during World War II by an enemy who
took advantage of Western naivete, just as Hamas and the rest of the
Islamic fundamentalists cannot see anything beyond the total
annihilation of those standing in their way and control over the entire
region:
"When a war breaks out,
people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." But though a war may
well be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a
knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so
much wrapped up in ourselves.
"In this respect our
townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves. In other
words they were humanists; they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence
isn't a thing made to man's measure, therefore we tell ourselves that
pestilence is a mere bogey of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away.
But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it
is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they
haven't taken their precautions."
My friends on the levelheaded Left, what else must happen for you to change your conceptions?
Dror Eydar
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9389
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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