_a.jpg "Photo: Yaron Brenner")
Jewish home in Ganei Tal
Photo: Yaron Brenner
Cry out, my country
Destruction of Gaza communities will lead Israel to terror and despair
On August 18, the country looked in the mirror and couldn't recognize itself.
Dr. Jeckyll saw Mr. Hyde and asked in a panic: Is that me?
And the "Children of 2005" asked: You promised us land - but now you're giving it to us all chopped up.
You promised us an army that would protect us – but you've given us an army and conquered and destroyed 25 Jewish towns, with plans to destroy another 100.
You promised a war on terror – but you've given terrorism its biggest victory: 2,801 homes, 270 institutions, 26 synagogues smashed, all under the misnomer "unilateral."
You promised we would "dwell together as brothers" – but now our brothers are coming as refugees, evicted and alienated.
You promised a Jewish people – but we've now got three distinct factions: Mourners, celebrants, and the indifferent.
You promised Zionism – but you left us with but a memory of the bright rays of settling the land, of making the desert bloom, of planting the Jewish people firmly in their land – now trampled under the feet of your uprooting feet.
Democratic promises
You promised democracy – but bequeathed to us a regime in which the Knesset, government, security and intelligence branches, the courts, media, academia and education systems, the public and cultural institutions, all fall into line behind one man.
(Ariel Sharon tells us to) "Settle the Negev and Galilee", but the only settling there will be done by Arabs.
In the Galilee, with the help of generous government funding, thousands of dunams of Jewish National Fund lands have been set aside for them.
In the Negev, 60 illegal (Arab) settlements have been declared legal, as Jewish ones have already begun to be razed.
No more 'people's army'
Even the value of "security" as a sign of Jews' ability to take responsibility for their own destiny expired when the Israeli army evicted Jews from their homes on orders of a foreign power.
Anyone looking for the good old "people's army" must first ask: Which people? The expellers or the expellees?
And how many of the victims can still believe they've got a place here?
On the "day after," Israel will live in the shadow of a Palestinian terror state. The "successful" expulsion of Jews will give renewed life to the "Road Map" peace plan that promises the Palestinians a Judenrein country.
Lessons for the kids
The teenagers of the new Israel watched the elected representatives and servants, and learned anti-civics, a disregard for the law, contempt for the courts.
They watched the IDF prostituted to fight a war against its own people. Who knows what will happen to the drive to serve and to excel?
For the first time, this country will come to know Jewish terror, and police units dressed in black.
It will be a bitter country, with a citizenry devoid of optimism. Even the national anthem, "The Hope," is on the way out.
It will be a body with no breath, a stock exchange with no soul.
Cry, out, my country.
