http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=4&datee=5/29/01&id=120306
Talk of expulsion more ominous than ever
By Danny Rabinowitz, Ha'aretz, 05/29/2001
Weekend magazines in newspapers that came out following the bloody
attack at Netanya's Sharon Mall and the Nablus prison bombing by F-16s
carried two articles which deserve mention. The first article, written
by Elyakim Haetzni (a Kiryat Arba resident), detailed dangers to which
Palestinians will be exposed, should they choose to persist with their
current approach. As Haetzni sees it, Israel is liable to reach a
point at which it will have no other option but to smite residents of
the territories with another Nakba (catastrophe), casting hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians out of their homes and native land. The
second article, an interview with Miriam Lapid (also a Kiryat Arba
resident), divulges a yet more systematic doctrine. After adjusting to
the fact that there is no military solution to the dispute, Lapid
doesn't speak about the lack of other choices or about necessities. As
she sees it, the expulsion of the Palestinian population from the
territories is the desirable solution right now.At first glance, the
fact that settlers are talking about the mass expulsion of
Palestinians hardly comes as a surprise. During the heyday of the Oslo
process there was no sign that the messianic right-wing vision of a
mass expulsion of Palestinians had receded. The uninterrupted
expansion of settlements carried out under the Barak and Netanyahu
governments (and with these governments' encouragement) repeatedly
made clear that the vision is alive and well, that there is no dearth
of players on the stage who are prepared to make it a reality, and
that no member of the messianic right relates to the settlements (new
or old ones) as bargaining chips.
On the other hand, the disturbing, ominous statements made by Haetzni
and Lapid, comments which stirred little response after their
publication, merit special attention. First of all, there is a
difference between a vision which, while refusing to die, is
articulated behind the scenes, and a public call that allows for, or
preaches in the name of, ethnic cleansing. Remarks made by Haetzni and
Lapid reflect the dark, dangerous surge of right-wing righteousness
that has convulsed Israeli society ever since Ehud Barak managed to
convince himself and the public that it is the Palestinians, and not
Israelis, who spurn peaceful accommodation. The rank insensitivity
shown by Israel's public in the face of the killings, closures and
starvation that their state has imposed on Palestinians, starting from
Shimon Peres's first days as Regional Cooperation Minister, has
thickened in the current period, when the Nobel Peace prize laureate
has moved to the Foreign Ministry, taking the joint reins of power in
the ruling triumvirate. This unforgivable insensitivity has become a
political and public foundation supporting policies enacted by Ben
Eliezer and Sharon, policy directives that send aircraft to bomb
Nablus and Gaza, and that smash to smithereens any remaining prospect
of dialogue.
Bald perplexity, primal confusion and the glaring lack of a real
opposition on the left constitute ideal circumstances for hearing the
threatening roars of the messianic right, with its blustering calls
for expulsion and Nakba. Surviving Oslo, the settlements have emerged
strengthened in the aftermath of the peace process. Following
Sharon's election as prime minister, the settlements have moved from
the political margins to take a central place on the policy stage.
Proud of the historic role which it pretends to have assumed, utterly
devoid of any serious spiritual-moral reckoning with the plunder of
Palestinian property wrought by the settlements, the messianic right
slouches onward. Saturated by hatred, not hindered by moral
inhibition, unmindful of the suffering and humiliation they cause
Palestinians to endure, the settlers are loath to acknowledge the
danger they pose to Israel's chances of achieving normalization. The
Oslo process merely strengthened their belief that they must do their
utmost to cover the length and breadth of the country. Anybody who's
wondering about the contents and parameters of "their utmost" would be
well advised to consider the ominous comments by Haetzni and Lapid,
which make clear that the settlers' campaign isn't constrained by red
lines of any sort.
The messianic drums beat in rhythm with events and processes that are
interpreted as signs of the world's advance toward the moment of
salvation and redemption. The escalation in the military stand-off
with the Palestinians, and the prospects of a general conflagration
that would yield another Palestinian catastrophe, are liable to be
taken on the far right as just such messianic stirrings. Jingoistic
rhetoric about "war" is already afoot: since the final week in April,
most right-wing government ministers have couched their pronouncements
in war-talk, castigating those of us who "haven't managed to
understand the situation," firing hearts for the worst of all
contingencies. Even if Sharon doesn't want war, the possible prospect
of the energy he's unleashing galvanizing and promoting the Nakba
envisioned by the extremist right ought to be a cause for real concern
for us all. Should we slip on this slope we'll never rise again -
neither morally nor in any other way.
