Photo Credit: flash 90
The latest uproar on the “Cultural Scene” in Israel is centered around a play called,”Parallel Time.” It is written by Bashar Murkus, an Israel Arab, or Palestinian, as their intellectuals prefer to be called these days.
The production enters the heart and mind of another Israeli Arab, Walid Daka, who is currently spending a life sentence in an Israeli prison. Walid Daka planned and executed the abduction and murder in 1987 of eighteen year old Moshe Tamam, an Israeli soldier,
The play is based on correspondence with the murderer in his jail, where he has since earned an MA degree and gotten married.
The play shows the very human side of the Palestinian prisoner and those of his suffering colleagues. A project, supported by the Ministry of Education, the play was slated to be seen by Israeli school children at the Al Midabn theater in Haifa.
The slaughtered soldier’s family went to the theater to protest the use of state funds to glorify the murderer of their son.
This time someone was listening.
Mr. Bennet, the new Minister of Education (Bayit Yehudi ), overruled the official committee that gave the green light for the controversial play. He said that “the state will not pay for the glorification of murderers of our soldiers, our children”
All hell broke loose. The “artist community” cried censorship and mind control, etc…
But that’s not all. Miri Regev, Minister of Culture (Likud), stated that her office will not support a theater in Jaffa because that state-funded institution refuses to perform their show “beyond the green line.” Ms. Regev ruled that if all the citizens support this position, then none of those citizens should not be boycotted by the ones they fund.
The theater announced that they would indeed break their own principles and “cross the line”
Again, the Left “culture monopoly” howled. What is happening! They are not used to their “New speak” being so challenged. Theirs was to determine what is good and bad, and be paid for it by the state and its citizens who could, after all not think for themselves.
Things may be changing..but not fast enough for one Haifa couple, The two are holocaust survivors. I heard him literally crying on the radio today as he described two years of torture; not in the camps but in Haifa. The couple lives in a “mixed building” in a “mixed” neighborhood in the “mixed” city of Haifa, home to progressive art.
“Palestinian” neighbors constantly cursed, spit, threatened and stole from them. When ever they called the police, they simply recorded the incidents and did nothing. The man literally cried.”I came to Israel to escape the exile, not to suffer the same again.
I knew a rabbi who would not allow this to continue two years; probably not two days. I knew him in NY where he led us into the thick of “inner city – changing” neighborhoods where Holocaust survivors were reliving their fears. There too the police were not much help.
I do recall how in the early eighties, that same rabbi paid a highly charged visit to Haifa.
Little Danny accepted a ride, or perhaps forced into the van, of three Israeli Arabs who worked in his Haifa neighborhood. Perhaps he knew them They took him to a cave and did unspeakable things to him before his soul left him.
At the trial, Danny’s parents were not only distraught but felt very alone. The families of the killers packed the court room. No on was there for the bereaved parents.
That is when the rabbi showed up with some of his followers. When the Arab cheering team noticed the rabbi enter , they turned their attentions to him and held up the PLO Victory sign.
The rabbi said, “When I become Prime Minister , those fingers come off and all of you will be put on trucks for Jordan”
I wonder if Danny’s parents would appreciate a play written about the complex, multi-faceted inner self of the three Arabs in jail today?
By the way, Shimon Peres, the high priest of national delusion, has called for the three sadistic Jew hating murderers / rapists to be released “in time” .
The prophet indeed said , “There will be a time when good will called bad and bad will be called good.”. and masochism will be called art.
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