Translation of an article in Ma'ariv
26-06-2001
[Uri
Avnery] / 23.6.01
Hi, McCarthy!
Hi, Joe McCarthy, so you are back
again. When you passed away you were generally despised, your name has
become a curse in many languages, including Hebrew. And now you have
come to life again, in all your sinister splendor, and in the State of
Israel, out of all places. (If, as I suspect, you were a hidden
anti-Semite, this will look to you a bizarre victory indeed.)
I have a little story to tell
as an example. Once a week I write a commentary on the situation and put
it on my internet site. It is directed, of course, at the Israeli
public. Anyone interested in my views can find and read it on the
web-sites (www.avnery-news.co.il
-
www.gush-shalom.org).
But the internet is a world of
miracles. An English translation
of the article is put on the site simultaneously with the
Hebrew original and reaches within a short time thousands of
people around the world. Many of those put them on their own
distribution lists. Here and there newspaper copy it from the web-site
and publish it in different languages. Within hours I get reactions from
different countries.
Last week, after the dubious
cease-fire came into effect, I devoted my commentary to an interim
balance sheet of the al-Aksa intifada. I tried to analyse, as
objectively as possible, the Palestinians’ gains and losses. A leading
Palestinian newspaper, al-Hiyat al-Jadida (The New Life), published the
article in extenso.
There are in Israel several
right-wing organizations, financed to the hilt, whose task is to gather
material from the Palestinian media for propaganda purposes, One of
these took some random sentences from my commentary, severed them from
their context and put them arbitrarily together, according to a
well-know method. Thus the impression was created that I had written an
article in the Palestinian paper calling upon the Palestinians to
continue attacking Israelis. Neither did they mention that the
Palestinian paper had taken the article from an Israeli web-site, nor
that the sentences quoted were taken from a section that analysed
Palestinian views. What was left? Avnery calls upon the Palestinians to
murder Israelis. No less.
After several days, in which the
poison was absorbed, the right-wing organization was compelled to
retract, this time, too, using false statements. (It alleged that the
Palestinian paper had misquoted me, which is quite untrue.)
What inflamed the rightists was
the part of my analysis in which I argued that the intifada has already
irreversibly proved that there is no future for the settlements. There
is not the slightest chance that the settlers could stay were they are.
The main argument for the
creation of the settlements was that they were essential for the
security of Israel. Rafael Eytan, the lamentable former Chief-of-Staff,
even swore to it in an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court. Now it
has been proven that the very opposite is true: the army is straining
under the burden of defending them. It is overtaxed: if the present
situation goes on, the IDF will cease being an army able to defend the
state, since it is prevented from training adequately for action against
existential dangers. Not to mention the immense material resources
devoured by this task.
The settlements are islands – or
archipelagos – in a sea of Palestinian towns and villages, whose hate
for them grows daily. The roads leading to them are indefensible. No
normal person will risk his life in order to get to them – no suppliers,
no maintenance people, no domestic help, not even relatives. A great
part of the settlers, who did not go there because of messianic
hallucinations, have already stolen away quietly, or think about doing
so; many others remain because they have no choice, as long as the
government does not pay compensation to those leaving. It is a mistake
to be taken in by the fanatics, who dominate the media, and who
represent only themselves and the likes of them.
The general public is starting to
be fed up. They are called upon to send their sons and daughters, active
soldiers and reservists, to defend bunches of fanatics. The settlers
were never popular with the majority of the Israelis, even before Yigal
Amir assassinated Rabin with the encouragement of some of the
Judea-Samaria rabbis*. Public opinion polls show that a
great majority is now ready to freeze all settlement activity in return
for a cease-fire. How long before mothers and fathers will begin to ask:
Until when? What for? What are we doing there? That has happened not so
long ago in Gaza and Ramallah, it will happen tomorrow in Ophra and
Ariel.
Any foreseeable political
solution will entail the evacuation of the settlers. That’s why they
spread now the slogan: "There is no solution to the conflict!" Meaning:
we must fight forever, and in the meantime the settlers will remain
where they are.
That is an illusion. The conflict
will not go on forever. It will not go on for many years. People will be
fed up long before that. Even McCarthy will not help.
*Anm. (haga):
Shlomo Aviner and others
haGalil 24-06-2001 |