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Gutted by the Gaza Tragedy
Last uploaded : Sunday 21st Aug 2005 at 02:00
Contributed by : The Editor

 

This has been an agonising week for those of a generation who saw the barren desert of Palestine turned into an orchard by the tormented remnants of European Jewry alongside the indigenous sabras of 1948. Liberal Diaspora Jews and a large proportion of Israelis will disagree: the removal of the settlers from Gaza was to them a watershed in the long conflict in the region and would be the harbinger of peace. For some of us the pain this week has been unbearable, most particularly the sight of Jews being dragged from synagogues by other Jews, and young children being evicted from the only homes they have ever known. We have already had the brow-beating from various members of liberal world Jewry about this being a small price to pay for the crimes of house demolitions in the Palestinian neighbourhoods, but since when do Jews who have never blown anyone up deserve to be torn from their homes?

We all choose to watch and listen to what we want to see and hear, and on television this week have been extensive scenes of legions of healthy, well-fed, well-dressed Palestinians marching in shiny boots and carrying gleaming weaponry to celebrate the departure of the Jews. In one segment of footage a large crowd of energetic and well-dressed women screamed to the cameras in paroxysms of joy their epithets about the sons they had lost as suicide bombers. The women were, without doubt, hysterical with glee over the vindication of their sons? method of death.

What was disturbing was the contradiction here: in the hand-wrenching European and British media, tales of abject poverty and deprivation are the order of the day whenever the Palestinian territories are mentioned. Nowhere in the past week has anyone seen anything but rather overweight ladies and fighting-fit men, along with sparkling children waving Hamas flags and running about with beautiful kites. One does not begrudge these youngsters their recreation but one does wonder where the money comes for massive posters and flags depicting suicide bombers being erected everywhere, and the masses of menacing weaponry being paraded all over the Gaza Strip.

Unless one is a Jew-hater filled with incurable loathing for the People of the Book, one has to admit that the Jews shown on television this past week have all looked immensely civilised, have never once fired a shot at the soldiers evicting them, and have been enormously articulate when interviewed by the world?s press.

Nothing has been said on the British media about the origins of the settlements. As Donald Rumsfeld so eloquently put it three years ago, Israel was facing extinction once more as Egyptian President Nasser called for the annihilation of the Jewish State in 1966. The world held its breath and Hans Tabor, the urbane chair of the Security Council, watched as the United Nations deliberated what had the potential to be the Third World War. The eloquent Israeli envoy Abba Eban, the epitome of civilised manhood, carved an indelible impression into the world's memory bank during those tense days.

Knowing the surrounding Arab states would annihilate her, Israel launched an attack known as ?Swift Sword,? and in six days had driven back all of her shell-shocked foes. This has, ever since, been seen as ?Zionist aggression and expansionism? by the rest of the world. The territory won by Israel in that war soon became gorgeous, fertile land. The Golan Heights began to produce wine that won prizes. Wherever Israel took over, the land blossomed. It is said that the Israeli army occupied the lands won in this war-to-the-death with brutality but it seems to have been overlooked that every time Israel has loosened its grip on territory won with the blood of its precious sons, terror has ensued inside the Green Line.

When Yitzhak Rabin was signing peace deals left, right and centre during the Oslo Accords overseen by US President Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher, suicide bombs and kidnappings were the order of the day from the Palestinian side, whom everyone thought would be happy to see their lands increasing in size.

As Rumseld ruefully said, Israel won a war and when you win a war you gain territory. The media, since 1967, have made Israel the villain when in fact the overwhelming number of violent confrontations have been triggered by Arab and Palestinian aggression, most notably the Yom Kippur War in 1973. What sort of society launches a war on the holiest day of the year in its neighbour?s faith?

This has been a lonely week for those who have suffered unspeakable pain at the sight of studious, industrious and well-spoken Jewish people being forced from their homes because the Arabs simply cannot live with them.

It is time for the Arab world to radically mend its ways and cease seeing the rest of humanity as intent on besmirching its environment. For fifty-seven years the Palestinians, expelled by other countries in the region, have had Israel alongside them as an example of a beautiful nation built from ashes. Millions of dollars of Arab League moneys have come in to the Arafat administration and now to Abbas. Where has it gone? I would wager that the young men who blow themselves up are in despair because they have no leaders. Where are the Arab Martin Luther Kings, ben-Gurions or Woodrow Wilsons?

The idea of Jews being driven from more glorious, lush and fertile lands to make way for legions of young men carrying AK-47s as their total contribution to their culture is chilling.

It is not our belief that the evacuation of Jews to the pre-1967 borders will bring peace. Hamas and Jihad want the Jews driven into the sea. If, heaven forbid, this happens, what will the young men in boots do then? Hang pictures in the hundreds of art galleries that pepper Israel? Make music in the scores of concert halls and opera house? Mend bodies in the magnificent hospitals and scientific centres built by hard-working Jews from the ashes of the Shoah?

We wait to see. Inasmuch as well-bred, well-educated, well-dressed and British-born young Muslims in Britain are declaring themselves for Jihad within our own island shores, we are not hopeful for Palestine. Mahmoud Abbas must rise to this unprecendeted occasion and not accede to the extremists. The Palestinian people deserve better.

     

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