Thursday, September 17, 2009

Reading Israeli media in the last two days one can definitely find himself in a very perplexed state of mind. There is a lot of buzz around some judge, named Goldstone; he obviously did something wrong, and he is probably one of the most dangerous enemies of the Jewish people, but exactly why one could not understand. Dear foreign ministry, please explain to me, a confused Israeli citizen, what was really wrong in this report. Does it contain any factual inaccuracies? Did it use inappropriate means for gathering the information? How the inherent anti-Israeli bias manifests itself in concrete terms?


Trying to figure out by myself I may come up with certain answers. For starters, I think it is not fair that Israel is being singled out, while of course other countries commit much graver crimes. This is true, but as we can imagine our establishment is really not in a position to say anything of this sort. After all, the countries who have their opponents' civilians killed by tens if not hundreds of thousands are also our closest friends: US, UK or just influential countries with whom you would not like to create too much tensions like Russia. Poor, poor Israeli leaders. They have been left without their mightiest argument.


What else could it be? Is it possible perhaps that Israeli leaders (and possibly, the public itself) don't consider taking the life of the Palestinian civilians a crime anymore. After all, they all would be gladly taking ours, wouldn't they? Or may be we have ceased to be a state and have turned into a gang, a gang that lives according to its own rules, devised primarily to defend its own members no matter at what cost? Or may be they all are lairs. All of them: Judge Goldstone, Palestinians, B'tselem, Human Right Watch. They all came here conniving their little plots against us, determined to bring about our downfall or probably a new Holocaust. Yes, Holocaust is the word. That's it. A complete annihilation of the Jewish people. That's why we don't like Mr. Goldstone with his kangaroo court.


I wish I could be less bitter, but I can't. We have reached a very crucial point. Beyond this point lies either hope of retrieving our own conscience or losing it forever and becoming irreversibly another failed state coloured in the cold tones of genocide and oppression. Far from being anti-Semitic this report offers us a final hope of cleansing ourselves of this poisonous and stifling air of parochial chauvinism. If we take this offer it would signify to the world and to ourselves our intention to stay on the right side of the divide, if we reject it it would retroactively prove that those who bombed shelters and schools, shot and humiliated people, vandalized and stole property did our bidding. Now we have to chose and may be it will make the choice a little easier if we remember that our friends and other important states will be affected by our choice too.