In March of this year, in an article entitled "Enlightened Efrat", I
praised the residents of Efrat for adopting a policy that would ban Arabs
from working in the town. The idea was born of two bombing attacks in
Efrat within a short period and the desire to protect the town's residents
from further harm.
It seems that this policy has fallen by the wayside in Efrat, with Arabs
once again roaming the streets at will, working on projects throughout the
town, and raising the ire of residents who fear further attacks.
The past 23 months have proven to all intelligent Israelis (and there are
thankfully quite a few) that open door policies allowing anonymous Arab
workers into Israeli communities also open the door to Arab terrorists who
blow themselves up in shopping malls, outside medical clinics, at
restaurants and on buses.
Since my initial article was published, the government of Israel has
adopted the policy of building a wall between Arab and Jewish communities
in several high-tension areas of the country. There are serious problems
with this idea, not the least of which are that the wall will be used as a
crutch to prop up a security doctrine that is quickly failing, and that
the wall will become a de facto border -- the aim of the Israeli left after
the failure of a negotiated settlement.
But even with all the faults that recommend against such a wall, the idea
of separation between Jews and Arabs is one that is quickly taking root
throughout Israel. Even most leftists in Israel are prepared to agree
that there is no hope left for the idea of Arabs living together with Jews in
Israel. The form of this separation is all that remains for the different
groups in Israel to debate.
Enter Efrat Mayor Eitan Golan. Here is a man who was elected last year to
head up one of the larger towns in Judea and Samaria, home to a few
thousand pioneering Israelis, including a large number of North American
immigrants, and a town that has seen its share of mourning for several of
its residents who have been killed due to Arab violence in the past two
years. One would think that Golan has at heart the same values that drive
Israel's front-line residents, the same drive that makes them want to
create their homes in Judea and Samaria. One would think that Golan would
have some appreciation for the Zionism that has created the State of
Israel and seen millions of Jews return to our homeland after millennia in exile.
Eitan Golan seems not to care about the resurgence of Arabs wandering his
town. He utters not a word of concern that one of them might blow himself
up in the supermarket again, or open fire on children in the neighborhood
parks. In fact, the situation in Efrat has gotten so bad that dozens of
residents, normally placid and friendly types, took the morning off from
work to stage a sit-in in his office protesting their lack of security.
Golan responded to his many visitors by asking, "Is this why they sent you
here from America?" One of the protestors was a 15-year-old injured in
one of the two attacks this past spring. To him, Golan demanded, "What were you doing there in the first place?"
Israel is a land to which North American immigrants come by choice, out of
a deep conviction that their destiny and that of the Land of Israel are
inseparable. These immigrants, of which I am one, come to Israel to live
a Jewish life in the Jewish State and pursue their Jewish identity at home.
No one "sent us here", and no one placed us in particular communities just
to bother the over-inflated ego of some megalomaniac small fry politician.
North American immigrants come to Israel out of purpose, resolve, and a
sense of destiny.
The fact that many such families choose to make their homes in communities
like Efrat means that Efrat is the expression of their Zionist will and
their Jewish yearning to live at home. Efrat, renewed 25 years ago on its
original biblical site, is the epitome of the Jewish return to its
homeland. That is why they are here.
It apparently never occurred to Eitan Golan that two basic tenets of
Zionism are the freedom of Jews and the security of Jews. The teenager he
verbally assaulted this morning was expressing his democratic, Zionist
right to walk on the street near his neighborhood medical clinic when a
terrorist tried to kill him. Rather than blame the terrorist for
attacking Jews in the Jewish homeland, Golan has the nerve to blame a teenager for "being there".
Golan's tirade this morning is ominously reminiscent of another Israeli
politician whose ideology has since been thoroughly discredited. Shimon
Peres once demanded of a Zionist demonstrator that she "go back where you
came from", thinking the demonstrator was American.
This kind of stupid ignorance of the entire purpose of the State of Israel
has no place in the political expression of the country or its leaders.
Shimon Peres has since gone on to lose two elections, and not bother
running in two others. Peres can no longer draw the votes needed to win
anything. Efrat's residents should give Golan the same treatment.
People of his ilk have no business running this country. That job is best left
for real Zionists.
------------------------------------------
Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. He can be contacted at butrfly@actcom.co.il.
Copyright 2002, all rights reserved. Reproduction in electronic or print
formats by permission only.
praised the residents of Efrat for adopting a policy that would ban Arabs
from working in the town. The idea was born of two bombing attacks in
Efrat within a short period and the desire to protect the town's residents
from further harm.
It seems that this policy has fallen by the wayside in Efrat, with Arabs
once again roaming the streets at will, working on projects throughout the
town, and raising the ire of residents who fear further attacks.
The past 23 months have proven to all intelligent Israelis (and there are
thankfully quite a few) that open door policies allowing anonymous Arab
workers into Israeli communities also open the door to Arab terrorists who
blow themselves up in shopping malls, outside medical clinics, at
restaurants and on buses.
Since my initial article was published, the government of Israel has
adopted the policy of building a wall between Arab and Jewish communities
in several high-tension areas of the country. There are serious problems
with this idea, not the least of which are that the wall will be used as a
crutch to prop up a security doctrine that is quickly failing, and that
the wall will become a de facto border -- the aim of the Israeli left after
the failure of a negotiated settlement.
But even with all the faults that recommend against such a wall, the idea
of separation between Jews and Arabs is one that is quickly taking root
throughout Israel. Even most leftists in Israel are prepared to agree
that there is no hope left for the idea of Arabs living together with Jews in
Israel. The form of this separation is all that remains for the different
groups in Israel to debate.
Enter Efrat Mayor Eitan Golan. Here is a man who was elected last year to
head up one of the larger towns in Judea and Samaria, home to a few
thousand pioneering Israelis, including a large number of North American
immigrants, and a town that has seen its share of mourning for several of
its residents who have been killed due to Arab violence in the past two
years. One would think that Golan has at heart the same values that drive
Israel's front-line residents, the same drive that makes them want to
create their homes in Judea and Samaria. One would think that Golan would
have some appreciation for the Zionism that has created the State of
Israel and seen millions of Jews return to our homeland after millennia in exile.
Eitan Golan seems not to care about the resurgence of Arabs wandering his
town. He utters not a word of concern that one of them might blow himself
up in the supermarket again, or open fire on children in the neighborhood
parks. In fact, the situation in Efrat has gotten so bad that dozens of
residents, normally placid and friendly types, took the morning off from
work to stage a sit-in in his office protesting their lack of security.
Golan responded to his many visitors by asking, "Is this why they sent you
here from America?" One of the protestors was a 15-year-old injured in
one of the two attacks this past spring. To him, Golan demanded, "What were you doing there in the first place?"
Israel is a land to which North American immigrants come by choice, out of
a deep conviction that their destiny and that of the Land of Israel are
inseparable. These immigrants, of which I am one, come to Israel to live
a Jewish life in the Jewish State and pursue their Jewish identity at home.
No one "sent us here", and no one placed us in particular communities just
to bother the over-inflated ego of some megalomaniac small fry politician.
North American immigrants come to Israel out of purpose, resolve, and a
sense of destiny.
The fact that many such families choose to make their homes in communities
like Efrat means that Efrat is the expression of their Zionist will and
their Jewish yearning to live at home. Efrat, renewed 25 years ago on its
original biblical site, is the epitome of the Jewish return to its
homeland. That is why they are here.
It apparently never occurred to Eitan Golan that two basic tenets of
Zionism are the freedom of Jews and the security of Jews. The teenager he
verbally assaulted this morning was expressing his democratic, Zionist
right to walk on the street near his neighborhood medical clinic when a
terrorist tried to kill him. Rather than blame the terrorist for
attacking Jews in the Jewish homeland, Golan has the nerve to blame a teenager for "being there".
Golan's tirade this morning is ominously reminiscent of another Israeli
politician whose ideology has since been thoroughly discredited. Shimon
Peres once demanded of a Zionist demonstrator that she "go back where you
came from", thinking the demonstrator was American.
This kind of stupid ignorance of the entire purpose of the State of Israel
has no place in the political expression of the country or its leaders.
Shimon Peres has since gone on to lose two elections, and not bother
running in two others. Peres can no longer draw the votes needed to win
anything. Efrat's residents should give Golan the same treatment.
People of his ilk have no business running this country. That job is best left
for real Zionists.
------------------------------------------
Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. He can be contacted at butrfly@actcom.co.il.
Copyright 2002, all rights reserved. Reproduction in electronic or print
formats by permission only.