Israel Hayom..
16 March '12..
A pungent cloud surrounds the homeless man, who has not showered in months. By a water fountain in the public park, he takes out a toothbrush and begins to brush his crumbling teeth. His clothes are tattered, filthy and disgusting, but he removes lint from the shoulder of his coat with great concentration. As he drinks the contents of a crushed soda can he found, he sticks out his little finger like an English lord.
Shooting down rockets in mid-flight is no different from brushing teeth that are severely decayed. It is no different from a foul-smelling beggar dabbing himself with perfume. Our rejoicing over the success of Iron Dome is indicative of a final and strategic decision not to win. We swat at mosquitoes from the Gaza swamp without noticing the rising stench from our own bodies. How about drying out the swamp? In your dreams.
This week, a young man from Gaza, injured while preparing a rocket launcher, was evacuated to an Israeli hospital. What ever happened to chasing down, destroying and eradicating the terrorists? Who has the energy? Besides, it would only lead to “another round” of violence. Such thoughts are based on the assumption that it will never end, that we will never beat them. They are the product of our highly efficient self-defense measures.
During the 1990s, car windows in Judea and Samaria were replaced by plastic ones. In the 2000s, when those who sought to kill us switched to live fire, they installed bulletproof windows on public transportation. Next, security guards started popping up everywhere, followed by X-ray machines, security fees on restaurant bills, bomb shelters, analgesics. When we reinforce our own defenses, we are telling the enemy it’s okay to attack us, that we’ve been persuaded we are not justified in wanting to live. A light flashing the word “guilty” appears over our heads. (“Israel violated the quiet,” “Shelling is the price for assassinating Zuhair al-Kaisi,” the talking heads announce.) A nation that wants to live, that really plans to stay here, does not accept a “drizzle” (one rocket per hour) on the “Negev” (Gedera and Yavne) as part of a “cease-fire.” A nation that wants to live speaks out bravely about the circumstances that led to this situation (before the 2005 disengagement from Gaza we had 140 Kassams per year on average; this week, we had 140 Grads in two days). A nation that wants to live does not describe the western coast of the country as “the south,” and does not praise the “strong resilience of the homefront,” but tries to move the front away from civilians. The battlefield should not be a shopping center in Ashdod.
This week will mark 10 years since the death of Elkana Gubi, a soldier with the elite special forces unit Duvdevan, who was driving with his brother on the Kissufim road in 2002 when a terrorist lying in ambush opened fire at civilian vehicles. Gubi and his brother got out of the car and began returning fire at the terrorist. The driver of a passing Israeli military jeep did not believe an Israeli could be returning fire. He thought Elkana, who was dressed in civilian clothing, must be a terrorist, so he ran over and killed him.
Ten years have passed. Where are we and where is Gubi’s heroism? A militia that operates from the same mobile phone cell as our chief of staff has managed to paralyze half the country, and the only question the media asks is how good our defenses are in Rishon Lezion, just south of Tel Aviv. The fact that we are still breathing is enough to describe the latest flare-up as a “successful round.” Oh, the terminology!
President Shimon Peres returned from Hollywood and told the children of the Negev, whose eyes were filled with fear, that the pause in rocket fire on their homes is a “window to peace.” Indeed, and the nationalist shooting attack in Ramle was a “conflict,” the stabbing in Nahariya amid cries of “Allahu akbar [Allah is great]” was a robbery, the attempt to lynch soldiers in Haifa was a case of “mistaken identity,” and explosions in the skies of Netivot are fireworks. Or rain.
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1566
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