Scanning the local press in Israel is a daily exercise in shuffling explosive affairs around the kitchen table. Every morning a new development or individual becomes a burning issue that goes up in smoke before the papers reach the dust bin.
Two weeks ago it was Pinchas Wallerstein, head of the West Bank Benyamin Regional Council, calling on his fellow settlers and citizens to rise up and resist the evacuation of Jews from Gush Katif. He asked that Jews sign up to be counted on to join the Gush Katif settlers in passive resistance, even at the price of imprisonment for breaking the new law the Knesset is preparing.
The media were outraged by Wallerstein’s chutzpah in calling for open resistance rather than requesting that settlers hand out flowers and smile during the evacuation. The attorney general was asked to open an immediate investigation against Wallerstein for his subversive act, in the hope that he would be the first person sentenced to a prison term for organizing dissent. The malicious press continued its tirade against Wallerstein until, rising from the ashes, the orange stars appeared.
Rina Ackerman sewed the orange stars onto the jackets of her eleven children and allowed them to be photographed behind barbed wire. The picture, when it appeared on the front page of Maariv, was so shocking to the Israeli public that Wallerstein’s appeal for passive resistance was quickly reduced to charred ashes.
My neighbor Daphne was outraged by the results of Rina’s nimble fingers and sewing acumen. “How dare she sew those stars onto the jackets of her children? It’s vicious! My parents are Holocaust survivors and this is a cruel, unforgivable act against the holy memories of millions who suffered from Nazi tyranny.”
I quietly reminded Daphne that the Ackermans and other home owners in Gush Katif who chose to don the orange stars are also children of survivors, but my voice evaporated as Daphne’s burning anger and blood pressure rose.
How does one judge which child of holocaust survivors has the right to act symbolically in behalf of victimized parents? Is it a question of who writes or shouts with greater animosity? Does the right to act symbolically belong to those who garner a larger audience to back their intense arguments?
In order to judge, perhaps we need to institute King Solomon’s wisdom. Jews throughout Israel – those on kibbutzim, moshavim, and in cities – should be ordered to leave their homes. Those who leave passively, giving away their property to the Arabs without any resistance, would be considered authentic survivors – having survived both Arab terror and the Israel media.
The political Left and its ideological allies in the media have been drafted to further the prime minister’s edict of transfer. Neither the prime minister, nor public officials, nor the media want to discuss what awaits us after evacuation is implemented.
For some advocates of evacuation, the motivating factor is blind hatred of the settlers. For others it is naive hope for future peace that drives them to pursue their folly. Some are willing to risk civil war in Israel for a potholed road map that is blowing up in our faces daily. Others believe the settlers, rather than risking civil war, will leave their homes, their livelihoods, and the graves of their loved ones, albeit with the guns of Jewish soldiers pointed at their backs. The government is banking on the latter.
This past week the media held the country in a state of suspense as journalists waited for the highest Torah authority, Rav Elyashiv, to decide whether the Yahadut Hatorah faction, comprising three members of Agudat Yisrael and two members of Degel Hatorah, would join the new government. After a week of waiting the rav granted permission to the faction to join the government for a three-month period. This allows Sharon to remain in power with a government that would include Likud, Labor, and Yahadut Hatorah. Rav Elyashiv stipulated that members of Yahadut Hatorah may not serve in ministerial positions; Agudat Yisrael, however, openly defied him. The Agudah reps, it now appears, will serve alongside the ministers of Likud and Labor, the Degel reps will not.