Ethnic Cleansing

I believe a underlying subtext in the ''There is no one to talk to'' line is ethnic cleansing. Effie Eitam, the former head of the NRP and an honest, blunt politician came right out and said it on Tuesday. '' We cannot be with all these Arabs, we'll have to expel the overwhelming majority of West Bank Arabs from here and remove Israeli Arabs from the political system.'' Avigdor Lieberman a much smarter man and the head of a major right wing mostly Russian party talks of rearranging and rationalizing the boundaries. I hear a wink- wink in Lieberman’s rearranging of the human furniture. Maybe I am overly sensitive. On the internet blogs there is the refrain ''America and Spain did it to the Indians, Germany, Russia, Poland and the Ukraine did their share of forcing unacceptable ethnicities to leave, so why can’t we?" Nebech. Poor us. It must be the world’s anti Semites ganging up on Israel.

Modern Orthodox criticize the charedim for blindly obeying the rabbis, i.e. the Daas Torah doctrine I discussed on 8/13. They never say a word of criticism of the mostly Modern Orthodox settlers, who slavishly follow the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Issac Kook (1864-1935)and his even more radicalized son Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook (1891-1982). A charedi guy is a fanatic …his rabbi says bugs in the lettuce and he scrubs away…the rabbi says cover your woman’s hair, he plops a sheitl on her head. The Modern Orthodox settlers are enlightened, college educated, derawchehaw darkei noam, (immersed in the ways of gentility and moderation). They are merely ready to fight in perpetuity for Eretz Yisrael hashelamaw, the whole land of Israel. As Malcolm Hoenlein, the President of the Conference of the American Jewish Organizations put it earlier this year ''an Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates.'' He exaggerated. He should have said an Israel from the Sinai to the Jordan. We’re not talking about Monsey glatt kosher; we’re talking endless wars with all that such wars entail. I ask you, who is the moderate, who is the fanatic?

The occupation even when combined with the forced removal of Arabs is not genocide. It is not a holocaust. The Jews had the bad luck they were not ethnically cleansed. If Hitler had simply rounded up all the Jews and dumped them somewhere, our ancestors would still be alive. There never would have been a holocaust.

What is possible in one century is not possible in another. During the great age of exploration, and then during the period when Europe and America acquired colonies and became imperialistic powers, the standards of international law were non existent. There was no law of nations, no Geneva conventions. Entire countries belonged to an individual, as was the case of the Congo and King Leopold. No one said a word. He slaughtered to his hearts content. These days it’s becoming more difficult to be a mass murderer. Some nations still get away with it. Sudan in Darfur is an example. There are others. Israel kills less than two thousand Lebanese inadvertently, and the world gets hot and bothered. I agree there is a double standard at work. If Israel tried exporting Arabs all hell will break loose.

These days ethnic cleansing is not for wusses. You need to have an authoritarian personality, somebody like Lieberman. His measure of possibility is the post-Stalin KGB. He walks around shocked how people can worry about civil rights of criminals and terrorists. The same holds true for many of the tough guys on the Israeli right. They think it’s the self hating leftists, with all their litigation on behalf of the Arabs, and their constant chatter about rights that are the problem; and of course the whole world. The people of the world are a bunch of anti-Semites, so it’s understandable. It’s the Beilins of the world and the Shulamit Alonis and Yossi Sarids and those Reform Rabbis in Israel and America. These elitist softy lefties are preventing Israel from doing what needs to be done. The leftists, boogeymen that they are, even got to Sharon.

I was having dinner the other week with a Modern Orthodox couple who make their home on the West Bank. The Mrs. says to me with a twinkle in her eye…''If you want to know how evil Sharon is, (for pulling the settlements out of Gaza), I’ll tell you. Sharon is sooo evil, even the malach hamawveth, the angel of death won’t have him.'' Cute, funny and a bit frightening.

A Shabbus meal, two left wing and six right wing people:
What is to be done? Woe unto us. The matzav (situation) is terrible…
What about talking with the Palestinians?
Are you nuts…with whom…how can you trust Hamas, Iran…They want to murder us...Do you remember Oslo …we gave them…and they…and we offered... and they respond with terrorism, suicide bombers...It’s liberals like you …We should take every Arab and *#@!...

OK, no talking …So what is your plan? (Long silence)
We need bitachon, trust in Hashem (God). Without emunah, faith, we are goners…

So why can’t we have bitachon and emunah in Hashem and negotiate?
Are you nuts…how can you trust Hamas, Iran…etc?

I say it’s not the tiny Israeli left that is the problem but the leftist inside everyone’s minds and hearts. In the most radical Kahanist there is still a residual of humanism and compassion that says ethnic cleansing is not the way to go.