THE SPINE DECEMBER 5, 2008
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
Avi Issacharoff is one of the top field reporters of Ha'aretz. And by "field" I mean the circumstances in which Israelis encounter Palestinians, often peacefully and normally, sometimes tensely and also across the barriers of fear and aggression. He is an honest reporter which is a big thing at Ha'aretz which employs dishonest journalists almost as a point of faith: Amira Hess and Akiva Eldar.
I've read Avi for some years now and read him, therefore, writing on events and phenomena I've observed myself, the withdrawal from Gaza, for example.
So when I noticed his article, "Hebron settler riots out and out pogroms," I hastened to read it, not once, but twice. And now thrice. It's not because I doubted what I was reading. I'd been to Jewish Hebron -small enclaves in Hebron proper- and I'd seen the saintliness of these gangster Jews.
No, I don't believe that Jews, even these unpleasant Jews, should be barred from access to the Cave of the Patriarchs. After all, Hebron is the place where Abraham actually bought land and where the patriarchy and matriarchy of Israel was spawned until a massacre put an end to the continuous Jewish presence in 1929. I'd have a bit more respect for those (Christians, Muslims, Jews) who clamor for Arab sovereignty by at least equally unpleasant Palestinians over Jerusalem if they were prepared to recognize a deep and compelling Jewish stake in Hebron.
Still, these Jews are gangsters of a peculiarly vicious sort. Like terrorists. Their viciousness is holy, at least to them and their less up-front comrades who do not have the stomach to draw blood.
But there are plenty of Hebron settlers who do have that strong stomach. And they have already poisoned their children with their self-righteous bravery.
Issacharoff's narrative is calm. It is the happening that stuns. The reporter calls it a pogrom, and a pogrom it seems very likely to be.
An old narrative of the third wave of pogroms in the Ukraine wrote that a "pogrom is a terrible word, like a cry in the night." Yes, very much like a lynching.
Pogrom, lynching. Shame on us.
6 comments
I'm glad you agree. I'm too busy hating Israeli settler extremists to pay any heed to the Palestinians. We need to get our own camp together before anything else happens.
- rozenson
December 5, 2008 at 3:44pm
Here is an article by Ami Isseroff about the gravest danger to Israel:
www.zionism-israel.com/.../00000601.html
And read this report of their abominable behaviour towards IDF soldiers:
blog.z-word.com/.../the-hebron-evacuation
- noga1
December 5, 2008 at 3:52pm
Keep these posts coming Marty they are needed.
- jacksondyer
December 5, 2008 at 4:29pm
Marty, why don't you just kiss Obama's rear end and end it at that. You are such a patsy with your mixed up interests over Israel. How does it feel to be schizophrenic Marty1, Marty 2?
You must know as well as anyone else that there is a propaganda effort to malign the west bank settlers in a dishonest and malicious effort to remove them like in Gaza, to push an insane peace process that is meaningless in the extreme. Because the Palestinians refuse to move in the direction of peace, Jewish settlers must be sacrificed, like Jesus, in the name of peace? Is there any limit to how low you and others like you will stoop? First Samantha Powers and now this. How close to Obama's rear end is required to promote your career. Stop using your Jewish credentials against your own people. It is sickening.
- ponty
December 6, 2008 at 7:47am
ponty,
when Jewish settlers adopt the violent practices of terrorists, they need to be dealt with harshly. The IDF forcing the settlers to abide by legal decisions shows the world Israel is willing to reign in it's own citizens.
When Israel asks Hamas to control their own citizenry, they can do so without hypocrisy.
- kerFuFFler
December 6, 2008 at 10:37am
kerFuFFler:
It's not about "showing the world" that " Israel is willing to reign in it's own citizens." and therefore, I presume, we are better than our enemies. It's not about being better. it's about being. If, and as long as Israel Is what it is meant to be, it is a homeland worth fighting for, even dying for. It's for the sake of the Israeli people that this scourge, this section of the violent settlers. must be dealt with summarily and without any prevarication.
I've always held a particular contempt for Palestinian leaders who "condemned" terrorist attacks on Israeli innocents, not because it was morally wrong in any way you can look at it, but because it made Palestinians look bad in the eyes of the world. But Palestinian morals are not my oncern. I can do nothing about them. Only Palestinians can correct their own thinking and ways.
But It is my concern what happens in Israeli society. Because I have a stake in that society. And it is always a better quality of good to live in a society that knows clearly and unequivocally the difference between self-defence and sheer hooliganism.
- noga1
December 7, 2008 at 8:45am