a tale of two nations-israelpalestina

7/29/2019 A Tale of Two Nations-israel palestina

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A Tale of Two Nations: the DeadlyRoad from the Holocaust to Israel/Palestina

Yair Mazor, Ph.D.University of [email protected]

Those were the worst of times,

And those were the worst of times.

(Inspired by Dickens A Tale of Two Cities)

he following brief preamble operates in capacity of a clus-ter of introductory comments to a series of articles that focus

on the reflection of the Holocaust in Modern Hebrew poetry, and

the latters connection to the incredibly bloody conflict betweentwo nationsbetween two entities, Israel and Palestina.(A personal comment: Entitling here the Palestinian entity

in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as Palestina clearly atteststo my profound belief that I srael must withdraw from all occupiedterritories while enabling the Palestinians to establish their ownindependent, free state).

Most certainly, one almost must be at liberty to introduce thefollowing question: how can one possibly track down a connection

between the Holocaust and the conflict in focus? After all, despitethe iniquities committed in that haunting conflict, despite thebrutal death, bereavement and bloodshed that everlastingly hoverabove that furious conflict, there is no way whatsoever to compareit with the atrocious genocide in which over 6,000,000 J ews andmillions of other innocent men, women, children and infants whowere murdered, slain, burnt, butchered, suffocated, hung,decapitated, and buried alive.

However, the Holocaust is addressed in this context in the

capacity of a metaphor of a venomous vertex of acid monstrositythat lurks in ambush in the devilish abyss of human beings whohave been morally sterilized defiled emotionally polluted and

T


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Israel and Palestine

Indeed it is unthinkable that the conflict under considerationmay be degraded to the mordantly morbidity of the Holocaust. Onthe other hand, however, who could ever have predicted the validpossibility of the Holocaust? Thus, in the context of this toxicconflict, does the Holocaust act as a lighthouseone that sheds awarning light on the venomous risk that may penetrate and piercethe raw materials of that ongoing, hopelessly lingering conflict?

Metaphorically, one may compare the conflict between theIsraelis and the Palestinians (following the Arab nations) toconflicts between Biblical siblings, such as Cain and Abel, J acob andEsau. In those rivalries one may trace conflicts between personalproclivities, interests and inclinations as well as the presence ofa Moyra, the Greek goddess of destiny, who bonded and harnessedboth foes to each other, and forced upon them an everlastingrivalry, one that can be resolved only by a separating mighty entity,like the Deux Ex Machina in the Greek tragedy, that is enlistedwhen the plot fails to introduce its own internal solution.

Indeed, a very relevant Biblical metaphor to the conflictbetween the Israeli and Palestinian nations is Isaac and Ismael.Ismael was evicted by Sara (against the will of his father, Abraham)in order to leave the familial dynasty to Isaac only. However,Ismael was compensated handsomely by God and became thefather of a great nation. Thus, the fact that I smael was evicted isbountifully balanced by the fact that God orchestrated thateviction and equalized the power between Isaac and Ismael, sinceeach became the father of his own great nation.

Nevertheless, the Palestinians may adopt the case ofIsmael when it comes to an eviction. The Israelis may counter-argue: you (while being part of J ordan) attacked us in 1967 and youwere defeated. Thus you evicted yourselves from your lands. ThePalestinians may respond: we were evicted by you ninety yearsago, when you started coming to Palestine while consideringyourselves pioneers. Hence while embracing the enticing titlepioneers, you dwelled on our land.

The Israelis can respond: we did not take even one square inchof the land since we bought the lands from your Sheiks. Indeed theysold us bad, swampy land for good money,but we labored hard (many of us died in that process) and turnedthe acid bogs into thriving fields, prosperous villages and flourishingcities.

The Palestinians may argue: you took advantage of our


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Israelis may counter argue: but those Sheiks were the only leaderswith whom we could communicate. The Israelis may furtherproceed: you got your own land and State in November, 29, 1948indeed much bigger than oursby the UN, but you refused, andattacked us. Also when after 1967 war we offered you (and Egyptand Syria as well) all your land for peace with us, you refused again.The Palestinians may counter argue: we refused because webelieve that you came to this part of the world as outsiders, andthus, the land cannot be your land.

The Israelis will continue arguing: this land became ours3500 years ago, thousands of years before the crystallization of thePalestinian nation. And besides, we are those who had been forcedto exile from this land of ours: the Romans evicted us from this landin 135 CE. The Palestinians may respond: with all due respect, weare not the Romans. The Israelis may counter argue: indeed, butsince you dwelled on the land from which we were evicted, you areonly temporary tenants in our land.

I am not quite certain what may be the next counterargument of the Palestinians. However, I am certain that thePalestinians have one. Also, I am equally certain that both partieswill continue flooding one another with cogent arguments whilesliding down on the history ladder, until they will reach the periodof the dinosaurs, while blaming each other: you were dinosaur Xwhich grazed on my land, but you were dinosaur Z which grazed onmy land....

The aforementioned is my example of how one credo of justiceclashes with an opposite credo of justice. I s it possible to have twosets of justice, each of them is equally just while each of themcontests the counter one? Is it possible to have such a persuasiveparadox, such a convincing oxymoron?

Indeed it is more possible than one can imagine. After all, lifeitself consists of a paradox; the very essence of life is founded onan oxymoron, as poetically portrayed by the following metaphor:the life of the wax candle is fed by its death, as the death of the waxcandle is fed by its life. All living things are gradually dying byliving. Even when people, for example, are still infants, and theyare gradually growing, blooming and thriving, the biologicallyfactual truth that that process of thriving is equally a process ofwithering.

Each and every ticking second of living is equally a second ofdying. One cannot live without gradually dying. By living we are


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Hence the very essence of the universe is founded on aparadox, is rooted profoundly in an oxymoron. Thus, since one setof justice cannot twist the arm of the opposite set of justice, theonly way to reach a solution is to reach a compromisecompromisethat accepts and respects not only the justice of the opposite party,but equally the fact that the opposite party feels that its justice isthe prevailing one (while willing to sacrifice that feeling on the altarof a realistic solution, of a reasonable compromise).

All the Palestinians and the Israelis who have negotiated thepeace command three shared languages: English, Arabic andHebrew. However, since the ongoing bloodshed has not, as yet,been translated into peace, it means that at least most of them donot speak the same language. Similar to the movie, Scenes froma Married Life by Ingmar Bergman, where the married couplequarrels cruelly and their hostess comments: the trouble is thatthey do not speak the same language; they need a translator.

Perhaps the complex case of the Palestinians and Israelis isa bit different. Hence, they CAN speak the same language (or atleast two close dialects of the same language); but for too manybloody decades now, they have refrained from practicing andspeaking the same language which they DO share.

Thus, since they refuse to speak the same languagethelanguage of Salam/Shalom/Peaceand since that refusal hasyielded flowing floods of bloodshed, it is time for the translator tointroduce himself: Deux Ex Machina. And that grand translatorshall say the following: I l Fat Matt (Arabic: What happened isdead) = Mah Shehaya Mat (Hebrew). It is a matter of a verbal/ideological interest that in both Hebrew and Arabic (which areconsiderably close to each other as two Semitic languages) thecrucial word death is almost the same (Matt/Mat), like the equallycrucial word for peace: Salam/Shalom.

Using the above as a metaphor, it is time that the verbalcloseness between Arabic and Hebrew, will be translated intocloseness in reality: the shared Matt/Mat/Death will be defeatedwhile the shared Salam/Shalom/Peace shall take over and prevail.

Previously, I restored the verbal/ideological dispute betweenthe Palestinians and the Israelis, when it comes to the rights to theland. I equally restored that dispute while descending on theladder of history. Hence, it is time to declare loudly and clearly:Living history in the present, means destroying the present thatmeans devastating the future. In order to ensure a viable future,


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putting an end to a reality in which one nation is deprived of itslands, of its freedom, of its pride. Curing the latter is the only waythat can confer redemption and justice upon the present.

There is no way to heal the Holocaust, but there is a way touse the monstrous past of the Holocaust for the benefit of thepresent and the futureto recollect what may happen when avenomous avalanche of acid hatred and scalding animosity are notterminated on time.


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