A passionate appeal to end Israel’s rule over Arabs

Press, 27 June 1989, Page 20

A passionate appeal to end Israel’s rule over Arabs

Israel’s foremost novelist, the kibbutznik AMOS OZ, caused a national furore with a denunciation of his country’s policies in the Occupied Territories. This is an edited version of his speech to a rally of the Peace Now movement in Tel Aviv. It is reprinted from the “Daily Telegraph.”

ISRAEL’S GOVERNMENT of occupation in the territories has become a monster; a monster which has long since crossed the Green Line, removed its masks and even boasts of its monstrosity. Armed gangs sally forth to wreak vengeance upon Arabs, and sometimes upon Jews who have the bad luck to look like Arabs; and upon Jews “who deserve to get shot like Arabs” and upon Jews who “look like Jews who deserve to get shot.” Thus we degenerate day by day from a situation in which patently illegal and patently inhuman deeds are done practically unhindered, to a situation in which the law itself, and in one or two cases even justice, are beginning to display signs of being swept in the direction of this savage cult. We are trying to say to President Herzog, to the Prime Minister and to all the rest: “For God’s sake stop nattering about ‘taking the law into their own hands’.” If each and every one of you — hawks and doves, religious and secular, rabbis and legal advisers — does not speak out and call sadism “sadism” — and a pogrom “a pogrom” — Judaism itself will be sucked into the depths of bestiality and defilement.

If you do not. take steps with all possible speed to rehabilitate the lawn which is beginning to be perverted, and justice which is beginning to falter, on the basis of the absolute principle of one and the same law for Arab and Jew; one and the same law for the settler, and for the protester against settlement; equal justice for friends and for adversaries — if you do not do this at once our blood is on your heads, and at the end of the road, your own blood as well. Without one law and equal justice for everyone, you will have to give up not only Ramallah and Hebron; you will have to give up the State of Israel,

because the State of Israel cannot live without one law and equal justice. Nothing can exist here without one law and equal justice. Not Hebron, not Tel Aviv. And not Judaism. And not the State. It will be a jungle here: Beirut.

The Israeli Government of Occupation in the Territories is crumbling and degenerating because the more or less agreedupon foundation which had supported the occupation for 21 years has disappeared: it is no longer possible to use the old excuse that “there’s no-one to talk to,” that there’s no partner for peace and that without the territories our enemies will throw us into the sea. These claims are dead.

I do not know what is deep in the enemy’s heart, but on his lips there are now suggestions for compromise and the peaceful coexistence of two States. Perhaps they are liars and deceivers.

But we will never know unless we enter negotiations and examine their suggestions face to face. The continuing deterioration, the blood being spilled, and the blood that will yet be spilled, is therefore also the responsibility of those who stubbornly pretend that there is no-one with whom to talk. There are among us a number of decent people who say to themselves: “Only by rebelling will we be able to force the politicans to change direction. We must sound a strong and clear declaration: we are not infinitely patient. Our patience is

coming to an end. The hypocrisy of our leaders, the self-justifica-tion of our officials, the shocking pliancy of two or three judges, the prevalence of double standard can bring us all to the point of saying: “This is it.” Should the day come when thousands and tens of thousands refuse to go to the territories to carry out the oppression of the population there — the Government of Occupation will collapse. However, at that time, the last links holding this society together will burst. Seven times a day we restrain ourselves from leaping and shouting: “Enough! We , won’t have any more of this.” Do not make the mistake of interpreting our public responsibility as dithering; our restraint as acquiescence.

We are not dithering. We are exercising self-control. The reason for this self-control is the realisation that, should Israel be forced to leave the territories, because of internal pressures as well as external pressures, it might arouse appetites among the extreme and fanatic Arab elements who will not stop at any border. It is a sense of responsibility that holds us back. These warnings must be sounded in unambiguous language; we do not want the nation to be ripped apart — but under no circumstances ’ whatever will we acquiesce in the transforma-, tion of our country into a monster. And we will not serve as the fangs and claws of the monster.

As for the hundreds of thou-

sands of Israelis, who believe that giving up the territories constitutes a death threat to the State ...

My dear hawks: I believe the sincerity of your doubts and suspicions, I do not make light of your reasons, and I ask that you, too, make the emotional and intellectual effort to understand the depth and sincerity of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis like ourselves, who are convinced that the continuation of the occupation and the wars to come are a death threat to this country.

You are not an incited mob: we are not defeatists and traitors. You are Israelis who want Greater Israel and do not believe in peace with the Arabs; we are Israelis who are convinced that now is the time to begin to make peace within the framework of leaving the territories — otherwise there will be an unparalleled disaster.

This disagreement will have to be solved fairly quickly, by means of debate and persuasion, and not by means of terror, defamation and hysteria. Do you want to convince us that in fact there is no Arab partner for peace? Then let us sit down and negotiate with our enemies — all our enemies — and find out whether or not there is, in fact, someone with whom to make peace. All this is on condition that with respect to everything having to do with pogromists, sadists and Jewish murderers, you take a stand together with us, shoulder to shoulder.

Furthermore, let us work together in the struggle to rescue Judaism from those who want to turn it into Hizbollah, and Zionism from those who want to turn it into Abu Nidal, and the State of Israel from those who are turning it into a monster. Put simply, I call upon you of the sane Right to take a stand together with us in defence of the common core: Thou shalt not commit murder. Peace, like war, begins and ends in people’s hearts.

For decades, the Palestinian national movement took a fanatic, extreme and inflexible stance. It did not refrain from any form of slaughter, including the slaughter of its own people, and was not prepared to give up an inch.

May God preserve the nation of Israel if it adopts a similar stance, now that the Palestinians are, perhaps, beginning to shake themselves free of the insane opinions which brought down upon them, and upon us, a tragedy that has lasted for 80 years. May God preserve the nation of Israel from stepping straight into the shoes out of which the P.L.O. is trying to step at this very moment. And 1 perhaps when peace finally comes, all of us, Israelis and Palestinians, will have to build a joint monument to our stupidity and blindness. Every child knows that, ultimately, Israel will today get less than it would have got five, 10, 15 years ago from an advantageous position of vision and generosity — whereas they, the Palestinians, will ultimately get only a small part of what they might have got peacefully and honourably more than 40 years ago.

Only the dead will get nothing — apart from wilting flowers. And let us hope that on the day that peace comes, all of us, Jews and Arabs, will not have to wipe the spit of the dead from our faces. Translated by Vivian Eden.