The scene could have been taken from the theater of the absurd. A seniorIDF officer was facing the camera, reacting bitterly to Israelidemonstrators calling him and his soldiers “Nazis.” “How can you call usNazis?” he asked, filled with rage. “We are only carrying out orders!Without sentiments!”
I have given much thought to these words. Obviously this officer knowsonly that the Nazis killed Jews. He does not know that for an entiregeneration, the words “We only carried out orders!” have been imprinted onthe Jewish consciousness as the slogan of the German war criminals. Andthe word “without sentiments” only makes it worse.
But the question is: What caused the demonstrators, respectablefolks, professors among them, to burst out withsuch an extreme and objectionable expression?
Every day we hear of the demolition of “illegally built” Palestinianhomes. At most, there are merely a few words in a newspaper. Words.But when seen with one’s own eyes, it is horrifying.
One of the most serious curses in the Arab culture is, “May your house bedestroyed.” Because a house is not merely a structure of stones andwalls. A house is the symbol of man’s dignity and of a family’s security.
A house is passed on from one generation to the next. The destruction ofa house is not just a dry administrative act. It is an act which rocksthe very foundations of human life. I suspect that even many liberalIsraelis, who do not give the matter much thought, do notperceive the heinousness of this daily act.
It is shocking to watch a bulldozer moving towards a wall and taking thefirst bite, then the second and the third, like an evil prehistoricmonster, until the wall collapses and the roof comes crashing down in acloud of dust. To hear the wailing of the men and women being draggedout in front of the children, to see their broken belongings scattered onthe ground. Are the soldiers’ hearts so hardened that they can “dothe job”, as the saying goes, “without sentiments”?
When those shocked Israeli demonstratos witnessed the demolition in therefugee camp of Anatah, and heard the soldiers saying that “they wereonly following orders,” the outburst occurred. One of the demonstrators,the erstwhile Chief Rabbi of Strasbourg, was present when the soldiersopened live fire and wounded a Palestinian youth in his back (he losta kidney). Unsurprisingly, the event did not merit a single wordin the Israeli press that day or the following day.
The demolition policy currently being implemented by the occupationauthorities carries the seed of the next calamity. A child whose housewas demolished in front of his terrified eyes becomes a walking timebomb. The entire Palestinian community which lives with this realityevery day knows that the “peace process” is nothing but a fairy tale, andin reality the war rages on throughout the territory.
Virtually every new Palestinian house in Jerusalem is built “without apermit,” since virtually no new permits are issued to Palestinians.(The very few Palestinians who do obtain permits are regarded ascollaborators.) The Netanyahu-Olmert-Suissa bunch want to reduce thePalestinian population of East Jerusalem and force its residents tomove elsewhere. The situation is absurd: Because theblue I.D. cards of East Jerusalem residents who have moved out of theovercrowded Arab parts of the city are now being confiscated, amass flow back into the city has begun. A Palestinians paysfor a amall apartment in the Old City more than an Israeli for aluxury apartment in Rehavia. Contractors find it lucrative to buildand rent. And so the feverish pace of Palestinian construction isreaching its peak. As the Bible said (Exodus 1, 12): “Bur the morethey afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.”
Even before the bulldozer moves out of the area after a demolition, thetask of rebuilding begins with the family and neighbors. Thelaborers returning from their day jobs in Israel proper join in theeffort. In a matter of days a new house has replaced the demolishedone, with the family ensconced in it. This process repeats itselfagain and again. So far, the Palestinian side is winning. The numberof “illegal” homes is growing.
Outside of the annexed area of Jerusalem, demolition takes placethroughout Area “C”, which Netanyahu and his partners (among them some ofthe leaders of the Labor Party) want to annex to Israel as well. Theintention is to carry out a “transfer”, known by the rest of theworld as “ethnic cleansing,” so that the territory can be acquired byIsrael free of any Arab people.
Human-rights activists from all over the world have send letters ofprotest to Netanyahu. His officials respond with a standard line thatcontains no truth whatsoever: It is just a matter of administrativeroutine, Jewish homes are demolished in the same manner, and assortedother lies that would fool only a simpleton. But the number of simpletonsis steadily shrinking.
Once we used to sing: “We have come to the land to build and to be built.”Now we can sing: “We have come to the land to destroy and to bedestroyed.”