"They Will Act Carefully around Us..."

「受難日」で祝日。自分にとっては申請の準備が1日遅れることになったような気分。受難。

In [the] view of [an unidentified settler in a Moshav -- a well-established farmer, educated, of Western origin], Israel should be "a mad state," so that people "will understand that we are a wild country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal," quite capable of "burning the oil field" or "opening World War III just like that," with nuclear weapons if necessary. Then "they will act carefully around us so as not to anger the wounded animal."... The Lebanon war was fine, but didn't go far enough ("it's a pity we didn't wipe out that wasps nest completely off the ground," referring to Ain el-Hilweh; "we should have done it with our own delicate hands," referring to Sabra-Shatila, instead of leaving it to the Phalange -- "can you call 500 Arabs a massacre?") "We shall open another war, kill and destroy more and more, until they will have had enough."... This man's goal is "to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel, to burn them, to make us hated by all, to make the ground unstable beneath the feet of the Jews in the Diaspora so that they shall be forced to rush here crying." He wants to imitate the Australians who exterminated the natives of Tasmania, or Truman who destroyed hundreds of thousands with two bombs. If instead of writing books, Jews had come to Palestine and "killed six million Arabs, or one million," then they would now be a people of 25 million, "from the Suez canal to the oil fields." It was a mistake that should not be made again. Afterwards, there will be time for culture and civilization. (p. 447)

[Yoram Peri -- former Adviser to Prime Minister Rabin and European representative of the Labor Party, and a specialist on civil-military relations in Israel] describes a "true revolution" that has taken place in Israel's basic "military-diplomatic conception," one that he dates to the political victory of Begin and Sharon... The earlier conception was based on the search for "coexistence" and maintenance of the status quo. Israel aimed at a peaceful settlement in which its position in the region would be recognized and its security achieved. The new conception is based on the goal of "hegemony," not "coexistence." No longer a status quo power, having achieved military dominance as the world's fourth most powerful military force, and no longer believing in even the possibility of peace or even its desirability except in terms of Israeli hegemony, Israel is now committed to "destabilization" of the region, including Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. In accordance to expand its borders and "to create a new reality," a "new order," rather than seek recognition within the status quo. (p. 462)

[Amos Perlmutter (Professor of Political Science at American University in Washington, military historian and strategic analyst, a former member of the Israeli delegation to the UN and the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission), Michael Handel (military historian at the Harvard Center for International Affairs, formerly of the Hebrew University), and Uri Bar-Joseph (formerly in the Israeli air force, involved with training and tactical planning)]... allege that Israel threatened to use nuclear weapons, and in fact prepared to do so, in the early stages of the October 1973 war, in order to compel the U.S. to provide "a massive shipment of conventional weapons" to Israel...
The authors then proceed to review the nuclear capabilities that Israel has developed in cooperation with South Africa and Taiwan. They cite reports, which they present as presumably accurate, that Israel has about 200 "operational nuclear warheads" (attributed to the CIA), including a tactical and strategic arsenal, and is working on a neutron bomb. The September 1979 incident in which American and Soviet spy satellites detected a suspected nuclear explosion over the Indian Ocean was in actuality the explosion of a nuclear shell launched from a cannon in a joint experiment of South Africa and Israel that involved "one of the most advanced tactical nuclear systems to be used anywhere in the world." (p. 466)

Destruction of homes has been a regular method of collective punishment from the early days of occupation, apart from the period when Menachem Begin (Likud) was Prime Minister. The practice was resumed on the return to power of the Labor Party, much admired [in the U.S.] for its moderation and humanity. It escalated rapidly as Defense Minister Rabin of the Labor Party undertook the task of suppressing the Intifada. Much of the same was true of torture, expulsion, and administrative detention, common practice under the Labor governments, halted or reduced during the Begin years, resumed when Labor dove Shimon Peres took over as Prime Minister... Israel appears to be the only country in the world that relies on this mode of population control as a regular practice, in violation not only of the Geneva Conventions but also of the very provision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which Israel and its apologists appeal with great fervor and self-righteousness when condemning the Soviet Union for restricting emigration of Russian Jews... (p. 476)

... Israeli journalist Pinhas Inbari... writes: "Whether speaking about a confederation with Jordan, or a confederative solution with Israel, we should pay attention to the fact that the political thinking of the Palestinians is far more advanced than our own, i.e., their search for a political solution featuring open borders, trust, and cooperation. Whoever followed the segregated 'vision of peace' presented by the Labor Party in the recent [1988] election campaign -- in which Israel/Palestine was to be divided into ghettos closed off by electrical fences -- cannot but be impressed by the courage of the Palestinians in presenting the challenges of open borders and economic cooperation." (p. 505)

... [F]ew react when the cover of the New Yorker magazine, in July 1993, depicts children happily building castles in the sand -- including a replica of the World Trade Center -- as a crazed child wearing Arab headdress leaps down to destroy them with an ugly leer; the children are Black, Latino, and White, a deft touch, designed to absolve the authors of any charge of racism, while at the same time highlighting the depravity of the ethnic group that is to be despised by right-thinking people. (p. 522)

あぁ～、イライラする。