While going over video and hundreds of photographs depicting the Israeli army evict Jewish settlers from Gaza and the West Bank, I suddenly understood the legendary Jewish predilection to exaggerate. Some Jews were actually smiling as they were being dragged from their homes while others cried. Some were laughing in the background. Others, mostly women, put on a melodramatic display of emotion similar to what one might see in a musical. The photographic exploitation of the unenlightened consternation on the faces of adolescents was particularly distasteful.
Comparing these images to international scenes of oppression by various authoritarian and despotic regimes such as China, Russia, or Latin America, complete with armed police tear gas and riot gear, the settler disengagement struck me as a well orchestrated charade that without serious injury went off like clockwork: uncharacteristic of the more unpredictable circumstances one might expect from a “resistance”. Some settlers seemed more concerned about participating in the event than being uprooted.
To be there for the occasion, so they can fill their lives with meaning and tell their children about the “terrible atrocity” that happened in the summer of 2005. Of all the Nazi-era films I have scene, I do not recall any where Jews and Nazis hugged each other before we were led away to the gas chambers. Furthermore, the Israeli government is handsomely reimbursing the settlers for their efforts. It is a damn shame that some Jews would even ‘think’ of comparing the disengagement to the Nazi era!
I am sure fundamentalist Jews will write books about “The Israeli Betrayal”, “Horror In Gaza”, “Shoah in the West Bank”, etc, while inventing charities and organizations to commemorate “the new Holocaust”. This will not be tolerated by American Jews who donate money to Israel. We will no longer be duped by religious fundamentalist propaganda and land grabbers. Trouble makers will be kept in their place. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising lasted twenty seven days with approximately one thousand fighters and many fatalities before it was crushed.
The disengagement lasted a few days with thousands upon thousands of settlers hugging their “oppressors” without serious injury. ‘Where’ is the comparison? Mordechaj Anielewicz would turn over in his grave if he caught wind of the comparison some Jews are making between the Nazi era and the charade in Gaza and the West Bank. Wearing a yellow star of David on ones chest in reminiscence of Nazi era atrocities during the disengagement is to devalue the Holocaust! Shame on you!!
American Jews are sick and tired of Jewish fundamentalist propaganda. We hear about “Arabs who raise their children to hate Jews”. It is true that a lot do, but what about Jews who raise their children to hate Arabs? What about Jews who preach Torah down the barrel of a rifle? What about Jews who make the fundamentalist claim that “God gave us the land”? And how is it possible to make a distinction between Islamofascists, and Jewish fascists? What is the difference between Baruch Goldstein and Mohammad Atta?
American Jews will no longer be tricked by fundamentalist Rabbis and religious intellectuals who attempt to pull at the heart-strings of American Jews, seducing them with devices such as “the right of return”, “the Golah”, “obligation”, etc. The David and Goliath motif is old news. You need to get a life. You need to mingle. How is it that Gods chosen got themselves into a position where we subjugate and oppress an entire Palestinian people in the first place? Is that what God “chose” for us to do? Is this what Rashi meant when he said “He created it and he gave it to them, and by His wish He took it from them and gave it to us”?
This is not peace. This is ‘violence’. Its what mercenaries do. It turns out that the ones with the biggest mouths didn’t put up much of a fight while being evicted from the occupied territories. Hmm. All this religious fundamentalism is simply an inability to understand and/or to accept that the Haskalah requires the relinquishment of certain antiquated ‘pathos’; to free people from a hermetically sealed environment and to thus allow them to participate in the world at large, with free will, openly, and without fear of stigma or being ostracized.
For how is it possible to share “the light” in a fundamentalist environment? By its very nature fundamentalism is cut off from outside influence thus intensifying the spectrum of intolerance because its standards are pre-set. When misused, the Masada consciousness always leads to trouble. Yeshayahu Liebowitz, the beloved Israeli philosopher once wrote “The newly occupied territories would become an untenable burden for the country because they would force Israel to become a repressive society”. His prediction came true, and the disengagement is proof of that. Too bad he didn’t live to see it.
