The Absurdity Of It All

The Absurdity Of  It  All                                            
March 16, 1996

In the North we are bombing away - and the Katushas keep
bouncing back..  Hizbulla is Public Enemy #1, - the bad
guys.  Shimon Peres isn't doing everything he can to blow
them away - but he is doing.

     In the South - in Gazza, the same Shimon Peres has
granted permits to Nief Hawatmei, Muhammad Daud Ooda,
otherwise known as Ibn Daud, and Leila Khaled to enter -
to attend the PNC convention.  Hawatmei was responsible
for, among other things, the massacre in Ma'alot.  Ibn
Daud planned the Olympic kidnapping and murder of Israeli
athletes.  Khaled is a well-known airplane hijacker. And
who's next on the list - none other than our old friend
George Habash.

     And crazily enough - these permits are issued and
publicized on the Memorial and Remembrance Day for the
six million killed in the Holocaust, as well as the
freedom-fighters in the ghettos throughout Europe.  The
absurdity is so unbelievably apparent - the hypocrisy -
the contradiction - yet it actually is happening.

     Just to put events in perspective - let's say for a
minute (and I know the subject is controversial - shh shh
- and I'm not using it to express an opinion, rather only
to make a point) that Baruch Goldstein was still alive
and in jail- imprisoned for  life - and for some reason
he was released and allowed to attend a special meeting
of the Knesset, where his vote was needed to change some
earth-shattering law.  What would the entire world say -
not to mention the Arabs and Jews?!

     These people have  killed, maimed, and
psychologically destroyed  men, women and children, and
they haven't finished.  Khaled and Hawatmei encourage and
compliment terrorism.  They are true, man-eating beasts,
who belong only in one place - six feet under.  Yet, they
are being allowed back into Eretz Yisrael, temporarily
controlled by Arafat.

     What lesson can we learn from this?  First and
foremost: terrorism pays off.  A terrorist group which is
stubborn enough, and smart enough, can get whatever it
wants by blowing people up.   Arafat has succeeded in
moving Israel out of almost all major cities in Judea,
Samaria and Gazza.  Only Hebron, a tiny ray of light in
the foggy darkness, remains.  And the terrorists are
`coming home.'  What more could they possibly want?

     If you don't know - I'll tell you: they want us out
of here.  No, not just the Jews in Hebron, Kiryat Arba
and Gush Katif.  They want all of us out - all the Jews
living in Eretz Yisrael, in the State of Israel.  And
anyone who thinks they are about to stop the terrorism
that has been so successful so far, is dreaming.  Take a
look at Hamas, working in tandem with Yassir - or, even
better - Hizbulla in the north. We are blowing them away,
but they  keep hitting back.  Syrian-Iranian aid,
assisted by tacit Lebanese  support, and bingo - they
keep up the good work.  This isn't the first time Israel
has been in South Lebanon, and it's not the first time
we've even bombed Beirut.  But last time, Arik Sharon was
pulling the trigger and Shimon Peres was raging.  Now,
Shimon is trigger-happy, and what he is actually
accomplishing is questionable.

     After all, the Hizbulla terrorists have temporarily
accomplished the seeming impossible.  They have  caused
75% of Kiryat Shemona's population to leave the city.
Everyone has, very simply, run away.  I cannot
legitimately condemn the Kiryat Shemona residents from
Hebron - but I can castigate a government which has
played into the hands of an Assad-Iranian gameplan, which
has led to the literal abandonment of a city in Eretz
Yisrael.  This is, of course, in total contradiction to
basic fundamental Zionist philosophy - never give in to
terrorists and never give up the ship - never, ever, run
away!

     What does Shimon have to gain from all of this?  If
everything works out, even temporarily, he will look like
a winner - stopping Katusha attacks without causing the
deaths of Israeli soldiers.  Except that Israelis have
short memories - they tend to forget the soldiers kill
over the last weeks and months by Hizbulla in South
Lebanon.  They forget that this operation should have
been carried out long ago - before the situation reached
the current proportions. And they don't think about what
will be six months from now.  However, things don't
always work out as expected - Shimon still might be
surprised.

     And what about the most absurd segment of this farce
- that is, that today is Holocaust Memorial Day.  I ask
myself, if those six million could talk to us - if they
could somehow communicate with us - what would they say?
The overwhelming atrocity of the Holocaust is so great
that it cannot be expressed.  But, if there was an answer
to the Holocaust, a result of the six million deaths, it
is the State of Israel, brought into being directly from
the ovens of Auchwitz.  If the six million did not die in
vain, (and I'm not saying that they didn't) it is only
because of the creation of the State of Israel - the
return of Am Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael.  What would they
have to say about a `Jewish leader,' who is going
backwards and giving the Promised Land to our arch-
enemies, some of whom cooperated with the German Death
Machine.  Listening to Shimon Peres speak at Yad V'Shem
last night, my stomach turned over.  Here, the absurdity
of absurdities - the person most responsible for
endangering the continued existence of the State of
Israel, and its entire Jewish population, - he is
eulogizing the people who died and brought about, in
their deaths, our being here.  What would they say if
they knew that the `leader of the Jewish People' wanted
to give Hebron, city of the Patriarchs, and major
segments of Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel, to
Arab terrorists who continue to kill Jews?  What would
they say if they knew that on the day memorializing their
memories, that same `Jewish leader' would officially
allow Hawatmei, Khaled and Ibn-Daud legally into Eretz
Yisrael?  The answer: I try very hard not to think about
it.

     At exactly 10:00 AM on Holocaust Memorial Day (and
on Memorial Day for soldiers and terrorist victims) a
siren blasts throughout the country.  All people stand,
wherever they happen to be, for two minutes.  The wailing
of the siren, usually used to broadcast the commencement
of hostilities, reminds us of what has been, and those
who are no longer with us, so that we might be here.
I've asked myself in the past, what do people think about
for those two minutes.  I imagine, about friends and
loved ones who fell, in war, terrorist attacks, in the
Holocaust.  But when I stand, I think of the unity of the
People of Israel, if even for only two minutes.  For
during those two minutes, we are one - really one.  I
think to myself the ultimate expression of oneness that I
know - in my head, silently, I say Shema Yisrael,
representing the unity of Am Yisrael, the unity and
oneness of G-d.  Those who knew they were going to their
deaths said these words with their last breath.  Others,
perhaps, as the last moment, thought them.  That is my
answer to the above absurdities - our trust and faith,
that G-d didn't bring us back to Eretz Yisrael after a
2,000 year-old exile, to let one Shimon Peres destroy the
hopes and dreams of the Jewish  People through the ages.

We will remain here, - and not just for us - but for all
those who died with Shema Yisrael on their lips, for the
last two thousand years, and for those who will not have
to die as they did, for the next thousand.