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Moshe Feiglin is head of the Jewish Leadership faction in the Likud and can be reached via the web site.
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By Moshe Feiglin
November 21, 2004
A small coast guard boat of the Israeli police left port at dawn, on its way to a place outside Israeli territorial waters. There, in the open sea, a small box, containing ashes and dust of bones, was opened. The contents of the box were scattered in every direction. At the end of its mission the boat returned to its home port.
This was in 1961. The ashes were those of Eichmann, arch-murderer of the Jews. This was during the Mapai era, before the reversal of values of Oslo.
If Eichmann had been caught today, it is reasonable to assume that an enthusiastic band of Israeli admirers would have accompanied his coffin on its way to the airport, and Arieh Golan would have contacted his supporters and expressed his condolences in a live broadcast. After all, what's the difference between Eichmann and Arafat, apart from the former's greater efficiency? In the sixty years that have elapsed since the end of the Second World War, Arafat was responsible for the murder of more Jewishcivilians than anyone else in the world.
A few minutes before he was put on the helicopter to Paris, Arafat managed to sign an order for the transfer of money to the various murder organizations. There is virtually no Israeli who doesn't have a relative or friend who was murdered on the orders of that arch-murderer, but the media give the impression that he was one of the founders of Zionism.
What is the meaning of this mental illness that has afflicted us in the last decade? How have we lost our most basic natural instinct, that of distinguishing between friends and enemies? How long will a zebra survive in the African Savanna if it forgets who is a leopard?
It all began with that evil handshake on the White House lawn between Rabin and the enemy of his people. In just one moment the distinction was destroyed between good and evil, between a murderer and a freedom fighter. We Jews are no longer the good guys in the story -- we are just the last of the white colonists who are still holding on to the occupied country of the poor Palestinian natives. There on the lawn we agreed in fact to the enemy's claim.
Apparently, in an act of good will, Arafat condescended to permit us to remain in the territories we had stolen from his people before 1967. In the face of the entire world the Israeli leader gave up the greatest asset we possessed -- justice. In the Oslo decade we entered an era of reversal of values, of moral vertigo. We signed that we agreed to being the bad guys in the story.
Most Israelis possess traditional Jewish values, even if they are not religious. They did not become confused by the madness that overtook Israeli leaders and a thin social layer that wishes to discard its Jewish identity. There'll always be some rabbis who will adopt the official line and purify the reptile, but they form an insignificant minority. From the time of the drowning of the Egyptians, the hanging of Haman, and up to the death of the German arch-enemy, sane Jews knew how to rejoice over the death of evil people.
In the post-modern period, that has abandoned the concepts of good and evil (and leaves the stage of history to evil only), in a madness of reversal of values, when it seems that an entire nation has lost its faith in its own righteousness, it was right and important to create a clear anchor of sanity.
We are holding on to good, and combating evil, and we rejoice when evil is defeated. We grieve for the Jews who were killed because we didn't destroy that evil many years ago. We give thanks to the Creator who removed that murderer from the world. We shall drink a toast to the lives of all the Jews who will continue to live because of this.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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