The Palestinian Issue Is a Wonderland of Double Negatives

It’s all very confusing, as Alice says in her Wonderland. It seems that we now live in a world where the substance of what is said, or done, does not matter. What matters is the actor, not the act. A perfect example of this is the Israeli-Palestinian situation, which comes close to the world as George Orwell imagined it in his “1984.”

Commentators refer to the high moral standards of the state of Israel without a blink, notwithstanding the fact that Israel is a state built on confiscated land. They refer to its democratic values, when the Palestinian minority, which managed to stay on after the creation of the state 40 years ago, is downtrodden, by any standards, and when the 75% of Palestinians who had been excluded from that state now live in refugee camps or in exile.

Contradictions and ironies emanating from the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy are too many to be listed, too striking to be ignored. Attitudes seem to swing from one extreme to another depending on whether Jews are the perpetrators or the victims.

When Palestinians are killed or assaulted by Israeli soldiers--you must remember that Palestinians have been treated worse across the border in Jordan and Lebanon. But repression of Jews in, say, the Soviet Union is not (as indeed it should not be) tolerated because Jews were massacred in Germany. It all depends on who the actors are.

When the United Nations passes a resolution condemning Israel--such is to be expected from that manipulated talking chamber which, apart from voting Israel into existence 40 years ago, has rarely said or done anything good.

When Israeli soldiers break the bones of Palestinian civilians--their acts should be condemned, not because the creatures who are now limping matter one little bit, but because such behavior goes against Jewish ethics and traditions.

The very essence of the Palestinians is itself a subject of glaring contradictions. The Palestinians’ name would suggest that they are the people of Palestine, as you would assume the Americans to be the people of America, not Brazil, and the French the people of France, not Sweden.

Apparently not. First the Palestinians did not exist (Golda Meir), then they did but were only idle, lazy and dirty people living in tents (Zionist historians), then they were scattered nomads who drifted across the river from Jordan, which is, incidentally, none other than Palestine (Gen. Ariel Sharon).

The Torah, the Bible, the Koran and the geography books refer to Palestine as the country where Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth are found. In the eyes of Rabbi Meir Kahane, they are all wrong. He and his followers maintain that Palestine is Jordan, and the Palestinians, though called Palestinian, are the people of Jordan.

The Palestinian problem seems to defy rationality. Last month, while violent suppression of Palestinian demonstrations was taking place in secret, there was a meeting of 65 Nobel laureates in Paris. Then Elie Wiesel, the meeting’s organizer, came on French television and declared his horror at seeing Palestinian children throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.

For 20 years, Palestinian political prisoners have described torture by Israeli interrogators. The International Red Cross, Amnesty International, the Sunday Times of London and others corroborated the claims, and when their evidence could not be refuted, they were bestowed with the label of anti-Semitism.

For two months now, Palestinian demonstrations have been a daily reality in the West Bank and Gaza. First it was said that they were inspired from outside. Then the Israeli government said that they were not. So the demonstrations became the result of poverty in the camps. Then urban Palestinians demonstrated in Jerusalem and Ramallah, and somehow the whole movement became the work of Islamic fundamentalists, which was as good an explanation as any, had it not been for the minor fact that the majority of Ramallah’s inhabitants are Palestinian Christians. It’s more and more confusing.

It does not seem to occur to the Israelis that Palestinians are demonstrating because they want to be free. Perhaps freedom, like justice, is universal and indivisible only for some people, and not for others.

It’s very confusing indeed.