'Gaza's residents share responsibility for failing to change their society's conduct'
Photo: AFP
Innocent Gazan civilians are responsible for their fate too
Op-ed: Gazans who claim to be victims of their rulers should have rebelled against those building missile bases under their homes. Because they have failed to do so, they will have to pay a price.
It's possible that the war will end by the time these words reach the outer world. If that happens, this article could well be read during the next war, which will undoubtedly break out soon. The agreement taking shape is incapable of preventing it.
The Jews, the world's secret rulers, are to blame for all its diseases. They have initiated the major wars that erupted since the days of yore to this very day, spread epidemics which killed millions of people, and caused all the social injustices. They are viruses which must be destroyed.
I have written many times about the Hamas charter, which reflects the outlook and goals of the organization's founders. I know that few have taken my advice and read it, and so I will note that the worldview of many of the charter's authors is no different from that of the authors of the most despicable anti-Semitic writings.
Balance of Terror
Ron Ben-Yishai
Analysis: Islamist organizations in Gaza are still negotiating over negotiations, while in Israel, defense chiefs are seeing start of unrest against Hamas.
Some of my friends think that I give words too much meaning, because one who makes a living off their production tends to overestimate them. They reality, they say, is stronger than pivotal documents written by desperate ideologists, and when reality changes for the better, and even when narrow windows of hope open, the old formulas are interpreted in a way matching the changed existence. After a while, no one remembers what was written.
Jews who voice this claim are forgetting that the Zionist movement was driven by words originating in what was written thousands of years ago which we still memorize incessantly.
Don't be alarmed by this comparison. I am not dealing with justifying or condemning views embodied in words, but with their power to motivate political movements, bring about revolutions and send people to die and kill.
The Hamas charter is a text expressing a frame of mind and creating a frame of mind which creates actions. If it has no importance, then neither have the "death to the Arabs" chants and the writings of rabbis recommending that many foreskins of Philistines be removed.
Those who play down the importance of the charter also argue that few Palestinians have read it. I suppose that's true, but how many of us can quote the Israeli Declaration of Independence, have red Leo Pinsker's "Auto-Emancipation," have memorized Theodor Herzl's "Der Judenstaat" and have heard about Ze'ev Jabotinsky's "Iron Wall"?
The essence of pivotal writings infiltrates the spoken language, the educational systems, the language of the press, politicians' speeches, religious clerics' sermons, and sinks into the national consciousness. The Hamas charter is an important component in the consciousness of those who fire missiles at us, even if they haven’t bothered reading a single line of it.
There are those who take pleasure in the Palestinians' suffering, and there are those who feel sorry for innocent Gazans who get hurt despite the army's efforts to only hit those who harass us. We can try to reduce the killing of innocent people can, but the conduct of a political entity is the creation of a collective rather than of individuals.
Not all Jews support the occupation and settlement policy, and I am one of those who oppose it, but I do know very well that at the end of the day I will pay the price for this policy, and so will my children and grandchildren, and I would never think of claiming that I am not responsible for it.
I am responsible because I share the responsibility for the society I live in, and if I have failed to change its conduct, the responsibility for that lies on my shoulders as well. That's the way it is in the lives of nations in which the rules of their lives are different from the rules of life of individuals.
Palestinians in Gaza who whine that nothing is their fault, because they are the victims of their rulers, because all they want is to make a living and live in peace, may be telling the truth. But if they are indeed telling the truth, they should have rebelled against their rulers and dealt courageously with those building missile bases under their homes.
Because they have failed to do so, they will have to pay a price I would have liked to spare them.
