Palestine Votes

Jan 21 1996

The right created an initial division, complaining that they were the "National Camp" and those who disagreed were at the very worst traitors, and at the very least cowards. But even with all the knitted kippot in the fighting ranks of the army -- a phenomenon that began only after the 1967 war, when rabbis already then started calling the war holy -- religion is at most a bridge for those who need it between art and science, and it's the wise who know how to conquer fear, while fools can only rave hysterical about it, lacking all responsibility.

In the states, the god motherhood and apple pie crowd crow over personal rights, while it's politically correct to first belong to an ethnic group (unless you're Jewish, which for some reason Americans think is the same as being white in the States) before you can speak for youself. There, the ignorance of the right about the roots of the Internet as the machine built to survive a Nuclear Holocaust (in order to keep it going by controlling the missiles) is revealed in their insistence it can be censored. Here, the right that claims to stand up for Zionism does so by proclaiming Israeli weakness, when it's clear that Arab readiness to accept Israel is proof of the Zionist victory and is a result of Israeli military and economic strength.

In short, the confusion is ripe as well as rife, sometimes stinking, though never as bad as war. That's why this week, the first week of a new era in this land, when the Palestinians embark on the course of political democracy, and the Israelis learn to let former enemies through its borders, we're more optimistic than ever, no matter what the bank manager says.

Naif Hawatmeh says he'll come back to Palestine - People forget that back when he still had some black hair, in Golda's years, he combined guerrilla actions against Israel with talk about accepting a piece of Palestine, if Israel recognized their national rights. Ariga's betting Hawatmeh will make sure his vote isn't the one that prevents Arafat from getting the PNC Covenant annulled.

There are lots of reasons for the confidence. Here's a roundabout way to one: Israel and Tunisia announced diplomatic relations. It was the third item on the news within three hours of being announced. (Hawatmeh's return will be top billing around here for awhile, part of the follow-up to the Palestinian elections.) But after the Israel-Tunisia story it was easy to pick up the hafla in Rosh Ha'ayin. On the same day that Uzi Meshulam's melameds were showing off their kids trained to sing about hanging Minister Moshe Shahal, in the country's largest Yemenite community in Rosh Ha'ayin non-Jewish visitors from Sa'ana, Yemen, were visiting. They spoke with their hosts in that particularly Yemenite form of speech that almost sounds like Aramaic, seeming to make Hebrew and Arabic closer than cousins in the mouths of the speakers. To the radio, they spoke in better English than the local pols (or perhaps Ofra Hazah's entourage -- she's due for a trip to Yemen, it's been said.).