Hi, Joe McCarthy, so you are back again. When you passed away you were generally despised, yourname has become a curse in many languages, including Hebrew. And now you have come to lifeagain, in all your sinister splendor, and in the State of Israel, out of all places. (If, as Isuspect, you were a hidden anti-Semite, this will look to you a bizarre victory indeed.)
I have a little story to tell as an example. Once a week I write a commentary on the situation andput it on my internet site. It is directed, of course, at the Israeli public. Anyone interestedin my views can find and read it on the web-sites (www.avnery-news.co.il,www.gush-shalom.org).
But the internet is a world of miracles. An English translation of the article is put on the sitesimultaneously with the Hebrew original and reaches within a short time thousands of peoplearound the world. Many of those put them on their own distribution lists. Here and therenewspaper copy it from the web-site and publish it in different languages. Within hours I getreactions from different countries.
Last week, after the dubious cease-fire came into effect, I devoted my commentary to aninterim balance sheet of the al-Aksa intifada. I tried to analyse, as objectively aspossible, the Palestinians’ gains and losses. A leading Palestinian newspaper, al-Hiyatal-Jadida (The New Life), published the article in extenso.
There are in Israel several right-wing organizations, financed to the hilt, whose task is togather material from the Palestinian media for propaganda purposes, One of these took somerandom sentences from my commentary, severed them from their context and put themarbitrarily together, according to a well-know method. Thus the impression was created thatI had written an article in the Palestinian paper calling upon the Palestinians to continueattacking Israelis. Neither did they mention that the Palestinian paper had taken thearticle from an Israeli web-site, nor that the sentences quoted were taken from a section thatanalysed Palestinian views. What was left? Avnery calls upon the Palestinians to murderIsraelis. No less.
After several days, in which the poison was absorbed, the right-wing organization wascompelled to retract, this time, too, using false statements. (It alleged that thePalestinian paper had misquoted me, which is quite untrue.)
What inflamed the rightists was the part of my analysis in which I argued that the intifada hasalready irreversibly proved that there is no future for the settlements. There is not theslightest chance that the settlers could stay were they are.
The main argument for the creation of the settlements was that they were essential for thesecurity of Israel. Rafael Eytan, the lamentable former Chief-of-Staff, even swore to it inan affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court. Now it has been proven that the very opposite istrue: the army is straining under the burden of defending them. It is overtaxed: if the presentsituation goes on, the IDF will cease being an army able to defend the state, since it isprevented from training adequately for action against existential dangers. Not to mentionthe immense material resources devoured by this task.
The settlements are islands – or archipelagos – in a sea of Palestinian towns and villages,whose hate for them grows daily. The roads leading to them are indefensible. No normal personwill risk his life in order to get to them – no suppliers, no maintenance people, no domestichelp, not even relatives. A great part of the settlers, who did not go there because ofmessianic hallucinations, have already stolen away quietly, or think about doing so; manyothers remain because they have no choice, as long as the government does not pay compensationto those leaving. It is a mistake to be taken in by the fanatics, who dominate the media, and whorepresent only themselves and the likes of them.
The general public is starting to be fed up. They are called upon to send their sons anddaughters, active soldiers and reservists, to defend bunches of fanatics. The settlers werenever popular with the majority of the Israelis, even before Yigal Amir assassinated Rabinwith the encouragement of some of the Judea-Samaria rabbis. Public opinion polls show that agreat majority is now ready to freeze all settlement activity in return for a cease-fire. Howlong before mothers and fathers will begin to ask: Until when? What for? What are we doingthere? That has happened not so long ago in Gaza and Ramallah, it will happen tomorrow in Ophraand Ariel.
Any foreseeable political solution will entail the evacuation of the settlers. That’s whythey spread now the slogan: “There is no solution to the conflict!” Meaning: we must fightforever, and in the meantime the settlers will remain where they are.
That is an illusion. The conflict will not go on forever. It will not go on for many years. Peoplewill be fed up long before that. Even McCarthy will not help.