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Warranted Hysteria
Ellen W. Horowitz October 22, 2002
Those settlers are at it again. You know what happened last time
they were allowed to vent their anger and rage.
But let¹s get something straight... This time as well as last time,
The hysteria was warranted. They are screaming for their lives and for
the
future of the Jewish People in the Land of Israel.
Our children want to live and they want to live in their land and no,
they
won¹t share it with homicidal maniacs. So when they were told to
vacate as
a good will gesture to a people that are, as of today, unfamiliar with
the
term ³good², they vigorously protested. What could be healthier?
Sounds
like a basic survival instinct to me.
The government, on the other hand, ain¹t feeling so well. It seems
that
Defense Minister Ben Eliezer, under the watchful eye of our Prime
Minister
chose not only to exacerbate an already precarious national and world
situation, but he decided to do his dirty work on the Sabbath.
Now, supposedly the current government stands under the banner of
National
Unity-a sacred concept, like Shabbat, to the Jewish People. But the
very
presence of Oslo architects in the government is a desecration of all
we
hold dear. Unity does not mean compromising our G-d given values and
principles in order to please a perverse fringe of self-hating Jews.
The
general, if not unified, consensus in Israel is that Oslo and the
Left-Wing
government that gave birth to it was a terrible a mistake. This very
acknowledgement by most of the population constitutes the type of unity
that
we should be seeking. Any Israeli citizen interested in the continuity
of
the Jewish people and the survival of the State of Israel knows in his
heart
that all peace overtures to the Palestinian leadership will lead to
nothing
but grief and must be halted.
Our settler and national religious youth have a far better concept of
their
Jewishness and their responsibility than the overwhelming majority of
our
Knesset members. These young people are grounded in their past and in
their
heritage. Shimon ³The Prophet² Peres, on the other hand, has a
different
view of history which he expressed so profanely in the following
interview:
"I am totally uninterested in the past. If you wouldn't ask me I
wouldn't
talk about it. The past bores me. Listen, it bores me for two reasons:
it
never repeats itself and secondly it is unchangeable. So why should I
concern myself with it?" ( Shimon PeresInterview with Michael Kapel,
Australia/Israel Review, June 6-June 26, 1997)
Ben Eliezer should step down as well as Peres, Burg, Ramon, Sarid
and anybody else who stands by accords and initiatives that have
wrought
nothing but a deluge of disaster and tears for Our People. But it
doesn¹t
stop there... The now infamous handshake on the Whitehouse lawn was
nothing
short of a pact with death that was signed, sealed and delivered
between the
Free World and agents of terror.
We knew it then, and our children know it now and they have a very
fierce
and passionate way of expressing their outrage. You won¹t find the
settler¹s children tripping in Goa or throwing rocks at last night¹s
soccer
game. No, they¹re staking a claim to their inheritance, to their land
and
to everything that a Jew should hold sacred, including the Sabbath.
Will they defy army and government orders? Probably. Do I sound a bit
undemocratic? Possibly. Could things get out of hand? Perhaps. But
if
it comes to offering my children up on the alter of proper Knesset
protocol, or finding a face-saving solution for Arik Sharon and his
³unity²
government, then I prefer to exercise a very basic human right -the
right to
exercise my lungs and scream in protest.
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