One
OUT OF THE ASHES OF THE WARSAW GHETTO/
OUT OF THE RUBBLE OF JENIN
Are the heroic Jewish fighters in the Warsaw ghetto the same Jews who have brutalized
the Palestinians of the West Bank?
Are the brave Palestinian fighters who resisted the Israeli juggernaut in Jenin the same
people who cut Daniel Pearl’s throat after making him proclaim to the world that he was
a Jew?
Are the tattooed survivors of Auschwitz also the Israeli pilots of Apache helicopters
creating corpses throughout the Holy Land?
Is the ninety year old Palestinian woman clinging to her rescuers also the desperate 18
year old suicide bomber out to murder as many Jews as she can?
Why does a Palestinian child in a refugee camp think a Jew means soldier?
Why do some relatives of mine think every Palestinian is a potential Hitler?
Why do Jews want a state of their own?
Why do Palestinians want a state of their own?
Why is a colonial occupying army called the Israeli Defense Force?
Why are members of Hamas who want to subjugate Jews, humiliate women, murder
homosexuals called freedom fighters?
What will a Palestinian state look like? I think, at best it would be a corporate controlled
quasi-racist entity like Israel. At worst a secular monstrosity like Iraq. Or a theocratic
nightmare like Iran.
What about a bi-national secular state? If it were to be brought into existence by armed
struggle it would be an Arab controlled state with an oppressed Jewish minority.
.
What about two states side by side as a result of a brokered peace agreement? What
would that look like? Israel’s leaders want a Palestinian state that would not be a real
state. It would be a weak state. A protectorate of Israel. Possibly of Jordan. Possibly of
Saudi Arabia. Probably a Bantustan. For a state to be real it must have an army that can
slaughter its neighbors and have a police force powerful enough to subjugate its own
population. That is the state most people of good will want to be created. A state equal to
Israel.
Thrown out of their land there are Palestinians who still have keys to their old homes.
The keys the old Jews have on their shelves are the ones that opened the gates out of
the crematorium.
For centuries Jews of the Diaspora have ended the Passover sader by saying, “Next year
in Jerusalem.” Each night Palestinians of the Diaspora say the same thing.
Two vulnerable, despised people. Both traumatized and often brutal. How will it all end?
One thing I know for sure, any Homeland worth its name is not a place any person
should want to live.
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Robert Roth is the co-founder of the beautiful And Then literary and arts journal.
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