One of my favorite novels is The Egyptian by Mika Waltari. It describes the life and times of a fictional physician, Sinuhe, who lives in the days of the 'heretical' Pharaoh Akhenaten. [The movie version was also very well done, IMHO.] At a critical moment in the plot, Sinuhe (whose name means 'He who is Alone') falls in love with a voracious woman, who teases him into giving her everything he has in order to win her love. When he finally has nothing left, having given her even the deed to his parents' tomb, she throw him out on his ear. He is left truly alone.
I thought about Sinuhe in the context of the Annapolis Conference and now Barak's move to seduce residents of Judea and Samaria to leave their homes. It occurred to me that the elites who 'govern' Israel are like Sinuhe. They are intoxicated with an illusory, impossible vision of Love and Peace with an Arab World that simply, and principledly, does not want us. Period. They, however, will do absolutely anything to win the love and affection of the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Muslims, and the Europeans.
Throw 10,000 people out of their homes with nowhere to go and leave them in tents for two years as their families disintegrate? No Problem.
Allow whole cities to be bombarded and their lives made into a living hell, because if we defend them some Palestinians might get hurt? Bitte (after all, it's only a bunch of Sefardim).
Offer up Jerusalem, the heart of the Jewish People, on a silver platter to people who tell you straight that Jews have no right to pray anywhere near the Kotel, Kever Rachel and Me'arat ha-Machpela (never mind the Temple Mount)? Be-vakasha (We lived for 2000 years without them. We can live ithout them now. Besides, Judaism is a primitive, unenlightened faith. Best to be rid of that too.)
Give the hill tops of Shomron to the Palestinians by putting it behind the separation fence? Why not? Do you really think they would shoot into Kfar Sava or down passenger jets?
The tragedy is that once we have nothing left to give, we will be thrown away by the Palestinians and the World. Like Sinhue, we will be all alone and left abandoned to fend for ourselves.
The truth is, though, that we don't need Mika Waltari to tell us that.
Hazal already made that point: "Why was Abraham called 'Ha-Ivri"? Because the whole world is on one side (ever) and he is on the other side."
I think waht it boils down to is that we are Jewish and the Israeli leadership is not. So the theory or appearance of peace is what drives the politicians,not the importance of the land or it's importance as a life source of the Jewish people. Olmert might as well be negotiating about Kenya.
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