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Israel-Palestine |
Is the Palestinian Intifada Really Over? |
2004-07-10 |
A primer for Mike moore By Israel Shamir, another Edward Said wannabe, in Arab News, so you can count on it... âThe Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lostââ thus proclaimed the Jewish American columnist Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post (June 18, 2004). Armed resistance has dwindled; there are no attacks on Israeli civilians; the Palestinians have been brought to their knees, thanks to the assassination of Palestinian leadership and to the Wall that has locked the unruly natives in their ghettos, wrote the Zionist stalwart. Is it true? Is the resistance over, and has the Holy Land been surrendered to the victor? Well, up to a point: Palestine canât be separated from the larger context: The battle for Palestine began in Jerusalem and Gaza, but now it rages in Fallujah and Kerbala, notwithstanding the appointment of a CIA agent as a ruler of âindependent Iraqâ; before coming back to Jerusalem, the war against Judeo-American domination probably will spread to Tehran, Damascus and even European capitals. But the intifada in Palestine unsurprisingly ran out of steam. The military might of the Jewish state knows no rival in the Middle East and beyond. Armed to the teeth, equipped with the latest American weaponry and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, it is probably able to take on any army on earth. Every Israeli man and woman serves in the army, and his or her military exploits are the necessary requirement for any career, from minister to hairdresser. This militarized settler society easily overpowered the thoroughly disarmed native population. The usual weapon of a Palestinian is a stone picked up on his hillside; their famed âsuicide-bombersâ were rather manifestation of their indomitable spirit than a threat to Israel; hardly more than a nuisance from military point of view. Ordinary road accidents kill more Israelis than the Palestinians. None had military training; cordoned off from the outer world, a Palestinian could not obtain arms save those bootlegged by the renegade settlers; no wonder he could not defeat the steely rows of tanks and air-to-ground laser-guided missiles. Moreover, the Jews have a powerful secret weapon at their disposal â their readiness to ruin the land. Their well-planned artesian wells killed the springs of water and turned the Holy Land into parched desert. This week I walked along the watercourse of Ghor (Arugot, in Hebrew), formerly a perennial stream. Home to mountain goat and leopard, this spring dried up, as the nearby kibbutz of Ein Gedi bored a shaft, laid a pipe and caught the water to bottle and sell in Tel Aviv. The gentle slopes of Samaria are disfigured by new roads to new Jewish suburbs. In the north of Gaza Strip, a green land of fragrant orchards is turned into black wilderness of Mordor with smoldering stubs of burned trees. In the ruined land, the settlers prevail over the natives. And still Krauthammerâs declaration of victory is premature. This immigrants-versus-natives confrontation over the sweet land of Palestine reminds me the Knightâs Tale, this first fruit of Chaucer, that tells of two brothers, Arcite and Palamon, madly in love with Kingâs daughter Emely, âfresh as May with blossoms born anew, all mild and reverent, her body washed with water from a well.â In order to win her hand, Arcite appealed to the god of war, and Palamon pled to the goddess of love. In the decisive tournament, Mars-inspired Arcite defeated the love-stricken Palamon, but he was not destined to wed the fair maiden: After his military victory, he collapsed and suddenly died. The god of war could deliver victory, but only the goddess of love could deliver the maiden. The gentle king gave his daughter to the defeated knight, and âwith all bliss and joyous melody this Palamon hath wedded Emelyâ, concludes Chaucer. Thus the English bard foretold an event unexpected by the hard-nosed Krauthammer: People who love their land will have her, even if military victory will be had by their adversaries. For the land should be loved as Emely was loved by Palamon, as woman is loved by man; and such a love is beyond the abilities of most Jews. Some of them see in Palestine a symbol of Godâs promise to the people of Israel or a pledge of Messianic days, but such symbolic love is doomed to fail. Likewise, my French socialist friend married a Russian girl, for she symbolized Communism and Dostoyevsky, but their marriage broke down under the heavy load of symbolism. My English politician friend has married to obscure his sexual preferences; he was tired to explain the voters why he did not marry. Likewise, many Jews were tempted to embrace Zionism as they were tired of explaining why they have no land of their own. But tiredness is a poor basis for marriage, and a real woman and a real land werenât made to provide an excuse. The worst of all are Krauthammers, the American Jews who believe that a land they did not plow and did not seed can belong to them for they have the deed, like a summer cottage they rarely visit â they know no love, but an impotent rich manâs jealousy to his bought-and-paid-for slave girl. The settlers proved their lack of true love at their withdrawal from Sinai in 1980s. Leaving these places after a short sojourn, they smashed everything they could lay their hands on, dynamited every house and bulldozed every garden and vineyard planted by native and imported hands. And now, discussing withdrawal from Gaza, the settlers swear they will obliterate all signs of life on their lands before surrendering them to the hated natives. This is not the way to deal with a loved land: A poet spread his tenderness toward his beloved like a carpet under her feet as she forsook him, and wished her to be happy with her new man, âloved as much as he loved her.â Indeed, Palestinians never damaged their homes and gardens they were forced to leave, and beautiful old Arab houses and gardens in Talbieh and Ain Karim bear witness to their mastersâ love to the end. Not only their faith in eventual return kept them back from torching their trees and burning their houses down before fleeing to the refugee camps of Lebanon and Gaza â but their selfless love for the land and trees. The Holy Land is a common project by Our Lord God and by her people. He created her, and they attended to her, built her terraces, dug around olives, and worshipped her Lord on her high places. Just as the defeated Palamon won his fair Emely, the vanquished will inherit the land; while victorious in battle will perish unless they surrender to the goddess of love, love to the land and her people. |
Posted by:tipper |
#10 "Frieth in his own grease." The Canterbury Tales (V, 6069), The Wife of Bath's Tale |
Posted by: True German Ally 2004-07-10 8:45:58 PM |
#9 So this is what they do with the English majors who are too stupid to flip burgers. |
Posted by: Zenster 2004-07-10 7:00:40 PM |
#8 The final fallacy of this article - in the example of Chaucer, the lady is given away by the king. The UN is no such king and has no such power. |
Posted by: Edward Yee 2004-07-10 4:49:11 PM |
#7 Sounds like a PhD thesis from the Evergreen College in Washigton state. Stil a HUH? |
Posted by: marek 2004-07-10 4:44:05 PM |
#6 Almost too pathetic to be real. I feel like sending him a bill for the time I wasted reading it. |
Posted by: RWV 2004-07-10 3:50:57 PM |
#5 Just a feeble attempt to get the enviros all riled up at the Jews. Krauthammer is a smarmy jerk but he is seldom wrong Mr Shamir. |
Posted by: FlameBait93268 2004-07-10 3:49:09 PM |
#4 The place which Mr. Shamir chose to vent his poisonous babblings doth tell of his true nature, methinks ! |
Posted by: Elder of zion 2004-07-10 3:40:12 PM |
#3 I'm with gromky - huh? Wotta self-deluded maroon. |
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-07-10 3:01:03 PM |
#2 Seethe, weep, and roar at the sky, 'tard. You and yours are consigned to history's idiot bin. Re: Intifada. It will sure as hell over when the wall is built... then the Israelis can stop sending in armor to nab / kill top terror shitheads and use stand-off tools - or just let them stew. They can throw all the rocks they want, hang each other as collaborators, and mega-seethe like the insane lot they are. Eat, sleep, drink, breathe, and shit hate, that's the Paleo way. Intifada, pfeh. Isolation is what's needed - and underway. |
Posted by: .com 2004-07-10 2:59:34 PM |
#1 Huh? |
Posted by: gromky 2004-07-10 2:21:12 PM |