A majority of Israelis emerged from the first intifada convinced that we need to do everything possible to end the occupation and ensure that our children don't serve as enforcers of Gaza's despair. That was why I initially supported the 1993 Oslo peace process that took a terrible gamble on Yasser Arafat's supposed transformation from terrorist to peacemaker. And even after it became clear that Arafat and other Palestinian leaders never intended to accept Israel's legitimacy, I supported the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, simply to extricate us from that region, knowing that we would not receive peace in return.
And now my son is fighting in Gaza. The conflict he and his friends confront is far worse than my generation's experience in Gaza. In our time, we were confronted with mere rocks and Molotov cocktails; my son faces Iranian-supplied anti-tank weapons -- one more price we will pay, along with the missile attacks on our towns, for the Gaza withdrawal, just as the Israeli right had warned.
Still, I don't regret that withdrawal. If Israelis are united today about our right to defend ourselves against Gaza's genocidally minded regime, it is at least partly because we are fighting from our international border. My son and his friends have one crucial advantage over my generation's experience in Gaza: They know, as we did not, that Israel was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for peace, uprooting thousands of its citizens from their homes and endorsing a Palestinian state. My son confronts Gaza knowing that its misery is now imposed by its leaders. He knows that his country was even prepared to share its most cherished national asset, Jerusalem, with its worst enemy, Arafat, for the sake of preventing this war. That empowers him with the moral self-confidence he will need to get through the coming days. The face of my Gaza enemy was a teenager throwing rocks; the face of Gavriel's Gaza enemy is a suicide bomber.
My question is: what of those, who, like me, didn't need all this experience of Oslo, and the Second Intifada and all the rest, including that expulsion scheme? Are we better morally to face the enemy? Are we better at understanding what the real problem is between the Arabs and us? Are our solutions more rational and more just?
Or are we incidental to the story? Are our experiences fairly negligible?
In justifying his current relative 'hawkish' position, was his relative 'dovish' position wrong or just misplaced at the time?
Ah, but was he so much smarter then?
(with apologies to Bob Dylan*)
===================
...In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.
Posts
1 comment:
We would have loved to have been proven wrong about Oslo. But no, Yossi, I don't think the current situation puts your son, or mine, in a position of "moral superiority" as compared to your Gaza service.
After all these years, we're climbing back into Gaza over a pile of Jewish dead who died to sooth the conscience of the Left.
"Hivtachtem yona", as you used to love to croon, "You promised us a dove". Now you can wrap your tender conscience up in the bodies of the innocent Jewish dead as our sons have to go back and clean out the cesspool.
Post a Comment