Sometimes a person “buys his world in one moment,” as the ancient Hebrew saying goes. This wasdone by the Minister of Justice, Yosef (“Tommy”) Lapid, when he uttered the words: “This oldwoman reminds me of my grandmother!”
This old woman, an inhabitant of the Rafah refugee camp whose house was demolished by theIsraeli army, was immortalized by the camera while rummaging through the ruins of her home in adesperate search for her medicines. Two days later, journalists found her at the same place,still looking for her medicines under the debris.
Tommy’s grandmother perished in the Holocaust. He himself was born in a Hungarian region inthe north of Yugoslavia and survived the Holocaust in the Budapest ghetto. When he mentioned”my grandmother”, it was quite clear that he meant a victim of the Holocaust.
The phrase kicked up a storm. It may well have been the straw that broke the camel’s back andinduced the government to call a halt to the ongoing atrocity in Rafah.
Of course, the situation was ripe for that. The pictures of the killing and destruction in thepoor town filled the TV news bulletins and newspaper pages throughout the world. The AlJazeera TV station showed them several times every hour to tens of millions in the Arab world.In the Western world, too, the screens were full of them. The accumulated impact was terrible -the Israeli army was shown as an inhuman machine that destroyed the lives of hundreds offamilies without even noticing. The picture of a small boy struggling with a huge suitcase inan attempt to save some of his family’s belongings says more than a thousands words of theofficial army liar.
The tank that was filmed shooting at unarmed protesters, who marched and clapped their handsin unison, brought the glass to overflowing. The pretexts and explanations by the officialpropaganda mercenaries only made things worse. One could sense the world shuddering.
But the military and political leadership was action-drunk. They announced that theoperation would continue on an even larger scale. Forces amounting to a reinforced armydivision were concentrated to deliver the coup de grace to Rafah. The intention – as testifiedby Lapid himself – was to demolish 3000 homes.
It seems that the Americans were active behind the scenes. George Bush is having enoughtrouble with Iraq. His policy is collapsing. The pictures from Rafah blackened still furtherthe image of the Americans, Sharon’s friends and partners, in the eyes of the Iraqis, whoseheart goes out to the Palestinians. For the first time, the US representative abstained fromvetoing a Security Council resolution criticizing Israel (even if in ridiculously moderatelanguage). Undoubtedly, telephone conversations were held in basic American, rebukingSharon much more harshly.
Inside Israel, too, the opposition gathered momentum. Day after day the radical peaceorganizations (almost alone, unfortunately) confronted the police in the cities and evenbroke through a roadblock on the border to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli media could not ignorethese demonstrations anymore and grudgingly devoted some seconds to them. (Al Jazeerashowed them for ten minutes, repeated again and again).
In the country’s leadership the conviction gained ground that the military operation was adismal failure. Apart from satisfying the thirst for revenge, no actual objective wasachieved. Some tunnels were indeed discovered (two according to one version, four accordingto another) – but, for that, a few companies would have been enough. The “wanted” men got out ofthe area when they saw the preparations for the gigantic operation. The division sowed deathand destruction without achieving anything.
In this situation, Lapid’s utterance broke the dam. The action was stopped in the middle.
As could be expected, rightists attacked Lapid violently. How dare he offend the memory of theHolocaust victims? How can one make such a comparison? This is a vile manipulation by Lapid ofhis being a Holocaust survivor! (In Israel, it is customary that only rightists have the rightto warn of a Second Holocaust, so they can compare Arafat to Hitler and the Palestinians to theNazis.)
Lapid tried desperately to defend himself. He had no intention of making a comparison, Godforbid. He had not mentioned the Holocaust at all. Besides, his second grandmother didsurvive the Holocaust.
So why did he utter the words in the first place? Cynics found many explanations: Lapid is amasterful demagogue. For years he has appeared in a TV talk-show and become famous for hisabusive attacks on leftists, Arabs, orthodox Jews, oriental Jews and poor people. Oneremembers, for example, an unemployed blond woman who appeared on his talk-show andcomplained about her miserable circumstances. Lapid interrupted her rudely: “So where didyou get the money to dye your hair?”
According to the cynics, Lapid feels that the wind is changing and so he is adapting himself. Hewants to prove that he is not Sharon’s poodle, as many believe. He wants to shake off hisresponsibility for the atrocities committed by the Sharon government.
All this may well be true, but I feel that the phrase about the grandmother escaped him in amoment of real agitation, without calculation. Underneath all the diverse strata of Lapid’spersonality, the woman in Rafah touched the deepest of all. Buried beneath the politician andthe TV entertainer there is the child from the Holocaust, and it is he that broke through at thatmoment.
There are moments in the life of a human being, when his most hidden quality is exposed, freefrom interests and calculations. I believe this is what happened at that moment.
The influence of the Holocaust on the character of the survivors, their children andchildren’s children, is a complex phenomenon. Once, a high-school principal gave me thecompositions written by his pupils, boys and girls, after a visit to Auschwitz. The reactionsdivided into two groups.
Most of the pupils wrote something like: “After seeing what the Nazis did to the Jews, myconclusion is that the defense of Israel and the Jewish people is the highest commandment, andfor this end, everything is permitted.”
A minority of the pupils wrote something like: “After seeing what the Nazis did to the Jews, myconclusion is that the Jewish State must be more humane than any other and set an example of howto behave towards minorities, so that this can never happen again.”
It seems that in the heart of Tommy Lapid both these reactions exist side by side. In ordinarytimes, the first reaction manifests itself in his behavior. But it must be said in his favorthat, in a moment of truth, a moment of profound agitation, the second reaction got the upperhand.
“Tommy’s grandmother” became a symbol this week. Let’s hope that it becomes a signpost.