Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Partying on Shenkin: A Response to Anonymous

I received the following comment to my posting of a few days ago:

Re: Partying on Shenkein... and if the Hitnadkut had been cancelled, and those of us in Tel Aviv who are forced to protect your settlelements would have been condemned to continued military service over the Green line against our deepest values, wouldn't the settlers have partied?

My response:

There are two types of responses that the opponents of the settlement enterprise can have. One is satifaction that their side has won a major victory. As much as it hurts me, you have the right to be satisfied.

The other type of rejoicing, which is all too prevalent, is to celebrate the destruction of other people's dreams, homes, lives and spirits. This type of vicious 'dancing on other people's blood' is what I was referring to. It is evidence of a deeper pathology of Jewish Life in Israel (and throughout Jewish History) where our loathing is reserved not for our enemies, but for each other (especially for the identifiable Jew, as Modern Jewish History has frequently taught).

I take no small comfort from your comment, though, in that you imply that while you reject Jews living in Yosh (since there's no longer any Yesha), you would still do your reserve duty to serve there. The fact that refusal to obey orders has not spread deeply on either side of the debate is, I pray, an indication that we haven't broken into two peoples. Lu Yehi.

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