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Paula R. Stern is the Founder and Documentation Manager of , a technical writing company. More of her articles can be found on her .
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By Paula R. Stern
December 26, 2005
You can take the Jew out of the ghetto, but apparently, you can't take the ghetto out of the Jew. This is the sad lesson we have learned repeatedly in the last few months. Thinking about this in the last few days, I was reminded of Menachem Begin's account of the re-establishment of the Jewish homeland after 2000 years in exile, "out of blood and fire and tears and ashes a new specimen of human being was born, a specimen completely unknown to the world for over eighteen hundred years, the Fighting Jew. That Jew, whom the world considered dead and buried never to rise again, has arisen. For he has learned that 'simple truth' of life and death, and he will never again go down to the sides of the pit and vanish from off the earth."
And yet, almost daily, the spirit of the beaten Jew becomes more in evidence and the fighting Jew fades. It's there in the fact that there was still an Israeli ambassador in Cairo a day after an official newspaper printed a column "Israel's Lies", which denied the existence of the Holocaust and the use of gas chambers, claiming, "These massacres, which Israel alleges that the Nazis perpetrated against the Jews, never happened. The famous execution chambers were no more than rooms for disinfecting clothing." This is a common theme in Arab countries and yet we have yet to adequately tell the world how offensive we find these lies, this denial of our most painful past. Our ambassador should have been recalled the next day, until an official apology was received and a retraction printed.
Our ghetto mentality is in evidence when a Member of Knesset can travel to Lebanon, with whom we are technically still at war, and proudly demand, "Return Palestine to us and take your democracy with you. We Arabs are not interested in it." Perhaps we could not stop Azmi Bishara from traveling to Lebanon, but upon his return, why was he not arrested and striped of his Knesset seat and charged with treason? The definition of treason is quite clear. It is a "violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign." This is what he did and yet this man continues to take part in the shaping of our laws and the actions of our government. Dissent is part of our society, but each day we allow those who deny our very right to exist to take advantage of our democracy shows that the ghetto Jew still lives in our leadership.
Many of our leaders continue to insist that Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen must be strengthened and concessions made so that he has the ability to fight off the extremists that are rampant in Palestinian society. And yet, it is Abu Mazen's government who now approves monthly stipends to the families of suicide bombers. It is his government that knew and did nothing about a tunnel designed to enable terrorists to infiltrate into Israel.
In the ghetto, we had no choice but to accept the Jewish leaders we had and understand that to survive, they were often forced to collaborate with our enemies, to trade what was good in the long term for what would let our people survive today. We are not in the ghetto anymore. Our goal is the long-term survival of the State. To sell our security for the short-term benefit of propping up Abu Mazen is a reflection of the ghetto mentality of our leaders.
While we talk of future withdrawals and surrendering territory that we need to protect our security, Palestinians vote for Hamas and create an election slate led by a convicted terrorist who sits in an Israeli prison sentenced to five life sentences for murdering our civilians. Can anyone doubt that the ghetto mentality of our leaders will likely result in Marwan Barghouti's release and futile attempts to negotiate with him?
Just as we Orange People said would happen, Ashkelon now falls within rocket fire range while we continue to bomb empty fields amidst more than 100 rockets and mortars that have been fired against us in the last three weeks. The ghetto mentality is one which has us strengthening roofs against incoming rocket attacks, rather than stopping the attacks themselves. What other nation accepts daily rocket attacks on their civilian population?
Just one day after the establishment of the State of Israel, Menachem Begin addressed his people, "We shall need a wise foreign policy in order to free our country and maintain our State....we must establish and maintain the principle of reciprocity in our relations with the nations of the world. There must be no self-denigration. There must be reciprocity. Enmity for enmity. Aid for aid. Friendship must be repaid with friendship....We must foster friendship and understanding between us and every nation, great or small, strong or weak, near or far, which recognizes our independence, which aids our national regeneration, and which is interested, even as we are, in international justice and peace among nations."
Menachem Begin words offer us the only path to future survival and to peace with our neighbors. It is, at once, the cure for the ghetto Jew and the promise that we will be accepted on the same terms as all other nations. We must offer and receive reciprocity. If we receive rockets from our neighbors, rockets they shall receive as well. To answer incoming rockets by reinforcing roofs makes it clear that we are ready to accept such attacks. To accept words of denial, of our right to exist, of the tragedies inflicted upon our people, means we are willing to deny our rights and ultimately to deny our pain.
If Israel is to follow the wise words of the last truly ethical and good leader we had, we must elect new leaders who are worthy of our trust, who understand that only in strength will we achieve peace with our neighbors.
Compare Begin's strong words to the weak and self-serving words of Kadima's Ehud Olmert, "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies." Are our enemies tired? Are they not trying to win the battle and using all methods to achieve their victory?
The Kadima party represents the greatest stockpile of corrupt, bankrupt and self-absorbed ever to present itself to Israeli voters. But even worse than the corruption, even worse than the lies and the deceit, is the re-emergence of the ghetto mentality.
Menachem Begin's words must guide us all: "We cannot buy peace from our enemies with appeasement. There is only one kind of 'peace' that can be bought - the peace of the graveyard, the peace of Treblinka. Be brave of spirit and ready for more trials. We shall withstand them."
We must answer Olmert and the like. More than our being tired of fighting, we must ensure that our enemies become tired of fighting. And we cannot afford to be tired of being courageous. We have no choice but to fight and to win and though we'd like to make peace with our enemies, until such time as they are willing to make peace with us, we must continue to defeat them.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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