Ghetto Mentality
Have you heard the latest news? Jewish people are being fenced in and separated from their families and friends. A forty-mile wall surrounding Jerusalem is now being created. This is to insure that Jewish people living in Jerusalem will be in a safe and encircled area. There will be eleven gates to enter and to leave. This cuts off the flow between the citizens in Jerusalem and the outside.
How awful, I think. This wall would traditionally be called a ghetto.
Former Prime Minister and founder of the State of Israel, Ben Gurion, once said “The ghetto outlook divided the universe into two: this world for the gentile and the next world for the Jew.” He seemed to be saying that the ghettos restrict Jewish normalization in societies, and how right he was.
It has been said that the excuse of herding Jews into designated living quarters was for their protection: to keep the division between the Jews and the population they lived with. Max Nordau, physician, Zionist leader, and author (1849-1923) said at the first Zionist Convention “The ghetto in the past was to the Jew not a jail but a sanctuary.” However, World War II taught us that ghettos are the beginning of the end. When the Jewish population is limited to the areas they become targets of anti-Semitism and easy annihilation. The Nazi program of ghettoization of Jews proved that by limiting access and movement of Jews, extermination would follow.
As strange as it may sound, it is the Israeli government who is building a ghetto to encircle Jerusalem called the Jerusalem envelope. They are guilty of a ghetto mentality. This so-called wall will cut off over fifty thousand Arabs from their families and work areas. Concurrently one third of the city’s seven hundred thousand citizens are Arabs. Israel’s dramatic building of this barrier is in the name of preventing terrorism. However this has not proven to be the case.
Recent events in Britain have taught the world that terrorism doesn’t always come from abroad but may also come from within. The London suicide bombers were all born in the United Kingdom and held citizenships granting them equal rights. Terrorism has lowered the bar by attacking from within and security checks of new aliens coming in from abroad are useless with this new horrific event. We now have to worry about homegrown terrorism versus keeping terrorism from coming in.
Out of Jerusalem proper Jews are being resettled forcefully, some through violence and confrontational behavior. Twenty to forty five thousand Jewish soldiers are involved with an organized and systematic plan to control the movement of Jewish people. Plans call for the houses of worship and cemeteries to be uprooted and destroyed. Ask yourself, which anti-Semitic country is doing this? The answer is Israel and this can’t happen.
In order to provide the maximum security the government feels that it will preempt terrorism by closing down the outlying twenty-one settlements from Gaza and four from the West Bank and make Israel smaller and safer. This nefarious plan is self-defeating, as it will encourage the Arabs living within the barrier and outside to perform more acts of suicide bombings, causing havoc within the capital of Israel. Many leaders have voiced concern that the removal of the settlements encourages violence as seen with the recent bombing in Natanya. It conveys a message of a government in a state of flight and fear thus encouraging more insurgent attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Sharon is adamant about the disengagement and the removal of settlers. He has a short memory as he was the one who insisted that the settlers build in the Gaza area and West Bank. Now he is making a complete turn by destroying the outlying settlements. Fencing in Israel has not deterred bombings, if anything it has made the targets easier for the bombers, they know where the victims live. Unfortunately they are now closer to target them. They have the freedom to travel armed and unrestricted, something which was never granted to them before. Remember, living behind a fortress means that there is no freedom outside its confines.
How can the Israeli government turn against its citizens, the settlers, and pioneers of Israel by uprooting them and destroying their homes and curtailing their movements? They are turning into adversaries. There are even reports of an upcoming internal civil war between Israelis as highlighted by this week’s stand off between settlers and the military. Soldiers lined the roads between all crossings to the Gaza Strip area and settlement and would not allow the boarding of busses headed to the demonstration. The religious soldiers are in a quandary. Many have been instructed by religious leaders that it is forbidden for the Israeli government to force them to remove any settlers from biblical Israel. The Gaza Strip and West Bank are considered biblical Israel. This instruction brings direct conflict between religion and state, something that must be avoided at all cost. The Jewish community is now under religious and political siege. I certainly believe that Israel’s planned withdrawal from Gaza will not invigorate a peace process but will cause more violence. Israel may be on the road to self destruction and that must be stopped.
The tendency upon seeing a fire is to grab liquid to extinguish the flames but one must be cautious not to grab a can of liquid kerosene instead of water. The Israeli government should be prudent and not rush to disengagement or ghetto building. They may be pouring kerosene on a smoldering fire.