“You’re going to force them to move? They don’t want to, and you can’t just do things by force. They are Israeli citizens with rights and obligations just like yours and mine. Listen to them. They are saying, ‘We are connected with our place, we were born here, this is our land, we are citizens of the country.’ What can you answer them?”
Complete amazement and an aura of disbelief permeated the room. Startled as if bitten by a snake, one of the attendees hit the coffee urn with his left elbow. Hot liquid spread quickly all over the table, staining everything in sight and dripping onto the carpeted floor.
An astonishing thing, to say the least. A late-age metamorphosis, perhaps? Or maybe the perpetual loser of Israeli politics, staring into the sunset of his life, had found the courage to hint at brotherly love toward those he had relentlessly vilified?
The coffee continued to spread all over the table and floor. The waiters, also frozen in their places from the impact of those thunderous words, at last jumped into action and began to clean the mess.
They heard the words but refused to believe. In the aftermath of Prime Minister Sharon’s bombshell pronouncement that he stood ready to forcibly evacuate settlers from their generation-long environment, Peres’s words would be welcomed by the Right as a soothing balm atop the soreness of the deep cut Sharon had inflicted.
Imagine! Shimon Peres – perennial antagonist of the settlers, self-appointed apologist for Arafat, tireless defender of the Arabs – had suddenly sprouted feathers of a different color. On second thought, it was impossible, thought the cynical politicos gathered in Peres’s presence. There had to be some misunderstanding.
Either that or senility had begun to settle in. “Poor Shimon,” the whisper traveled around the table, the stares quickly turning to looks of pity. “Perhaps a call to Hatzolah is appropriate?” questioned the colleague sitting on the right side of the table as he turned toward another sitting behind him.
“He needs help, and quickly,” responded the colleague, “or else there is a G-d, and we know that is not possible!” The silence was palatable, the shock continuing to reverberate through the crowded, stuffy room. Miracle? Illusion?
The old man smiled broadly; he saw the sudden shock, heard the whispers, noticed the creeping pity on their faces. He looked around in amusement, a smile beginning to spread across his lips. Nodding his head, he looked each individual in the eye; they, in turn, looked away lest he notice the sympathy and concern.
“Are these people total imbeciles?” he asked himself. “They think that I, Shimon Peres, would abandon my advocacy of Palestinian rights, self-determination and statehood? Why would they possibly assume that in the blink of an eye I could throw away my long held convictions? Who do these mental-midgets think I am? Sharon?”
Disgust registered on his wrinkled face and he stood up in a huff. Silence fell across the room as he raised his voice to the gathering.
“That is the problem with this decrepit Labor Party. You have lost all sense of loyalty. You have abandoned the moral convictions of this party and its political platform. You are quick to falter, to abandon, and to think ill of those such as myself who will never consider any possibility other than following through on our noble mission. Let me, therefore, elaborate on what it was that I said. Listen!
“Sharon has announced he will evacuate seventeen Gaza settlements and three in the West Bank. He has proclaimed his intention of turning Gaza into a Judenrein area by expelling its Jewish residents. He continued on to say that Um-el-Fahm, the Israeli-Arab city in the Shomron, will be included in the transfer. The forty-thousand Um-el-Fahm residents will be evacuated, expelled and transferred into the PA territories in exchange for Jewish-populated areas in Judea and Samaria.
“That, ladies and gentlemen, is the outrage I was railing against! How blatantly barbaric, how totally inconsiderate, how ruthless. To throw the Arabs off their lands is preposterous, unethical and inhuman. They will not consent willingly! As such, are we, the liberal, political caretakers of the State of Israel, going to simply sit by and watch the horror of such forced transfer? An outright atrocity, unheard of since the Nazis.
“We cannot allow such a travesty of justice to occur in this country. These people are Israeli citizens, in a democratic state. We have the sacred obligation to preserve their legal and human rights. We cannot allow Sharon to stain our morality and ethics. Nor will the world ever allow it. Arab human dignity must be preserved at all costs.”
Thunderous clapping broke out as Peres finished speaking his words of wisdom. A deep sigh of relief spread across the room. Radiant smiles and happy handshakes were the order of the day as, one by one, each of the assembled rose to congratulate Peres.
In the chaotic political culture of Israel, the voice of sanity had been heard again.
Advertisement