generalspeaking

Friday, November 02, 2012

The Chosen People

It's no easy task to set out to exterminate an entire race of people. Of course that's using the descriptive "race" lightly, for in fact there is one human race on this planet and within that race are superficial differences, ethnic anthropological variations mostly due to environment, isolation, culture; from Pygmies to Scandinavians, Inuit to Caucasians, Asians to Semites.

Ah, Semites. Although Arabs like to say they cannot be anti-Semitic because they are themselves Semites, that term is now used exclusively while not anthropologically but socially to designate Jews.

There is that about Jews that sets them apart, makes them distinct from other population groups.

Whether it is a perceived sense of collective hubris that a people would declare themselves to be special, the favoured of a one true God is debatable. After all, the Greeks and North American Indians as examples considered themselves 'the people', above and apart from all other lesser mortals. No particular acrimony accrues to other cultures who felt themselves set apart, as special, however.

Traditionally in all areas of the world where Jews settled in the great diaspora they were viewed askance, with suspicion and hostility. These 'chosen people' were too self-involved, too insular, too absorbed with themselves and their persistence in insisting that God Almighty lent them a task to be a light unto the world.

Which meant that they and they alone were expected to behave in a manner that would reflect well on the Lord their God. For they were his subjects, his first faithful. And by their shining example, as citizens of the world dedicated to the monotheistic worship of a singular, all-powerful deity, others would be challenged to be faithful themselves.

Do unto others, that simple three words encapsulated entirely an ancient prescription that held that if one dealt fairly with others, others would reciprocate. And even if they did not, the onus still remained on the faithful to do unto others as they would have done unto themselves.

When the Third Reich painstakingly took time out from militarily occupying and enslaving the countries of Europe, to plan the wholesale destruction of Jews, there was no resistance. Jews were rounded up and many of their neighbours were anxious to help expedite the job.

The fascist defamation of Jews by slanderous smears to justify ridding the world of the pestilence of such sub-humans seemed to make sense to those who detested them, in any event. And populations of Jews in various European countries were surrendered to the Final Solution.

Even when the shocking, unbelievable news of what was occurring, the wholesale destruction of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children seeped through to the West, little was done to rescue human beings from annihilation. And so the numbers of those destroyed kept mounting. And the doomed clung to a hope of rescue that simply would not materialize.

From the ashes of the crematoria, the remnants of European Jewry, understood full well that to return to the countries that had abandoned them would simply leave them vulnerable to future similar catastrophes. A return to Zion that had been discussed among fervent Zionists long before the Holocaust became a practical solution.

Exhausted, demoralized and ailing Jews of all derivations, classes and ages were smuggled from European refugee camps through their own underground railroads by dedicated Zionists anxious to re-people their ancient land. To fulfill their dream of Israel reborn.

Not that there weren't present in Palestine Jews who had never left. Apart from Jews who had for thousands of years also lived in Arab countries of the Middle East. In Palestine where an unbroken heritage of Jewish presence was a reality, the land was also occupied by Arabs moving there from nearby Jordan and Egypt, and between the various populations, just as occurred in Europe, there were disagreements, resentment and violent pogroms.

When the State of Israel proclaimed its official presence with the blessing of the United Nations - which august body into the future would regret its guilt-induced decision as a rash one - its neighbours took immediate steps to inform their own Jewish populations they were henceforth persona non grata, and banished them.

At the same time the assembled armies of the Arab states within the Middle East assured the Arab Palestinians that the nascent state would soon be cleared out. That their absence from their land was but temporary until such time as all Jewish would be vanquished, the land cleared of their unwarranted presence.

When that failed to occur, the Palestinian Arabs who had fled in panic, became a refugee population that none of their brethren states was willing to absorb. They became a festering pressure-ulcer upon the regional body politic which chafed at the presence of a Jewish state on land consecrated to Islam.

And when Yasser Arafat and his cohorts established the Palestine Liberation Organization, the die was cast for Arab terrorism focused exclusively on Israel. With its agenda of focusing world attention on their escapades, high-jacking airplanes, ships, blowing up European synagogues, to ensure that the world would not forget their purpose.

One of Chairman Arafat's chief colleagues, Khalil al-Wazir, who co-established the PLO and its murderous, avenging agenda acted as a top-level conspirator who planned more than his share of violent attacks against Israeli Jews in an ongoing war against the Jewish state. He also organized the first Palestinian 'uprising' against Israel, the First Intifada.

This man, responsible for the deaths of countless Jews, named himself Abu Jihad, the Father of Holy War.

The Father of Holy War came up against The People of the Book whom history and heritage had named The Chosen. And among The Chosen it was well understood that An Eye for An Eye, a concept that Judaism and its Arab offshoot Islam both knew as part of their heritage, reigned alongside the injunction to "do unto others".

Israel's secret service, the Mossad, and a commando brigade, Sayeret Matkal, collaborated in an operation to do unto Abu Jihad what he had done to their own.

"I shot him with a long burst of fire. I was careful not to hurt his wife, who had showed up there. He died. Abu Jihad was involved in horrible acts against civilians. He was a dead man walking. I shot him without hesitation."

In 1988, in a seaborne raid in Tunisia. Testimony given 12 years ago to the Israeli newspaper Yediot by the since-deceased commando Nahum Lev.

Simple enough. And end of that particular story.

Labels: Anti-Semitism, Arab League, Conflict, Heritage, Holocaust, Islamism, Judaism, Palestinian Authority, Political Realities