"Itbach Al-Yahud!" [Slaughter the Jews] the muezzin screams, while sounding the loud, wailing call for Muslim prayer. "Itbach Al-Yahud!" thousands of PA Muslims chant in frenzied anger, as their collective spittle saturates our Holy Land. This is what we see and hear every Friday afternoon from every mosque. The ticking time bomb has gone off. And I'm beside myself.
A member of the Knesset, Zahava Gal-On, joined by the esteemed Attorney General of Israel, Elyakim Rubenstein, who represents the Jewish people all over the world, have stated that a website article "was a violation of laws against incitement," and a call to "murder hundreds of thousands of Palestinians," and that the website should be banned.
And I am beside myself, in anger.
And I am talking to myself, asking myself; What will be? What will be?
"Today, I am in the minority. The state is democratic. Who says that in the year 2000 we Arabs will still be the minority: Today I accept the fact that this is a Jewish state with an Arab minority. But when we are the majority, I will not accept the fact of a Jewish state with an Arab majority." (Na'ama Saud, a teacher from the Israeli Arab village of Araba; May 28, 1976, long before websites existed.)
And I read the European papers and I ask myself how the Europeans could possibly believe they themselves are not anti-Semitic. They declare the fault lies with the hordes of Muslim immigrants, but the French census for the year 2001 tells a different story; the facts are clear, for a total population of 60.7 million residents of France, only 5,000,000 are Muslim, while the 'new wave of anti-Semitism' rises to new heights. And I am beside myself with worry.
I'm talking to myself, asking if the world has gone mad again. Thinking to myself: Jews - either you take over this world gone mad and make sense of it, or we will have another genocide on our hands.
I remember! I remember Mahmud Muhared, chairman of the Arab Student Committee, Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his words, spoken long before any website existed, also in 1976, when he said: "We do not recognize the right which you call 'historic' of the Jewish people to this land - this is our fundamental principle.... In this land, only the Palestinian Arab people have historic right."
Yes, I am talking to myself, and I am beside myself with grief and I am remembering.
"And the L-rd said unto Abram... if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those that you let remain of them shall be thorns in your eyes and thistles in your sides and shall torment you in the land wherein you dwell." (Genesis 33:55 in the Torah) Is our Torah soaked with incitement?
The Jew is blamed for being Jewish. The raped woman is blamed for being a woman. The molested child is blamed for being a child. And I'm beside myself in disgust at our leaders.
The United Nations rejected the first resolution by Israel since 1976, stating that our children are innocent and we have every right to protect them. The Islamic nations, led by Egypt, have a problem with the Jewish people being defined as human, as the definition will mean the Palestinian Authority Muslims have committed murder of our children, according to the law. And I'm beside myself in tears and rage.
I learn the US troops are building more concrete and barbed-wire fences in Iraq to protect themselves from Muslim terrorists, while their Commander-in-Chief is angrily yelling at Israel for doing the same. And this is our homeland. And I'm beside myself, knowing suddenly why some folk tear their hair out.
Many Israelis are in abject fear of upsetting America's leaders. How dare we bother them with our need to survive, how dare we bother them with our woes of terror. And I'm beside myself in fear, not knowing what it is I fear, afraid of my own sense of clarity and non-clarity.
I'm talking to myself, asking why we fear this particular nation, the US, which is incapable of closing her borders during a War on Terror, is incapable of finding her own energy or even discussing the possibility, whose own president has called Islam "a religion of peace." Does this president know his soldiers are fighting Islamic terrorists?
And I'm stunned by our own insecurity and lack of faith. I'm stunned by our own lack of confidence.
I was cleaning out a closet yesterday and found a 1980 Kibbutz map. The picture of radiant Israelis, smiling with brilliance and boldness and self-confidence, felt like a relic, an antique of a long, long time ago.
The Muslim propaganda against the Jewish people and the Jewish State is dazzling. It is having great success in every corner of the world. The Muslim propaganda has boldly announced it is perfectly legal to murder Jewish children in cold blood, while MK Gal-On and Attorney General Rubenstein are blaming a website for incitement. And I'm beside myself, in utter shock.
Where is our anger? Where are the Jewish protests? Where is our outrage?
A member of the Knesset, Zahava Gal-On, joined by the esteemed Attorney General of Israel, Elyakim Rubenstein, who represents the Jewish people all over the world, have stated that a website article "was a violation of laws against incitement," and a call to "murder hundreds of thousands of Palestinians," and that the website should be banned.
And I am beside myself, in anger.
And I am talking to myself, asking myself; What will be? What will be?
"Today, I am in the minority. The state is democratic. Who says that in the year 2000 we Arabs will still be the minority: Today I accept the fact that this is a Jewish state with an Arab minority. But when we are the majority, I will not accept the fact of a Jewish state with an Arab majority." (Na'ama Saud, a teacher from the Israeli Arab village of Araba; May 28, 1976, long before websites existed.)
And I read the European papers and I ask myself how the Europeans could possibly believe they themselves are not anti-Semitic. They declare the fault lies with the hordes of Muslim immigrants, but the French census for the year 2001 tells a different story; the facts are clear, for a total population of 60.7 million residents of France, only 5,000,000 are Muslim, while the 'new wave of anti-Semitism' rises to new heights. And I am beside myself with worry.
I'm talking to myself, asking if the world has gone mad again. Thinking to myself: Jews - either you take over this world gone mad and make sense of it, or we will have another genocide on our hands.
I remember! I remember Mahmud Muhared, chairman of the Arab Student Committee, Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his words, spoken long before any website existed, also in 1976, when he said: "We do not recognize the right which you call 'historic' of the Jewish people to this land - this is our fundamental principle.... In this land, only the Palestinian Arab people have historic right."
Yes, I am talking to myself, and I am beside myself with grief and I am remembering.
"And the L-rd said unto Abram... if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those that you let remain of them shall be thorns in your eyes and thistles in your sides and shall torment you in the land wherein you dwell." (Genesis 33:55 in the Torah) Is our Torah soaked with incitement?
The Jew is blamed for being Jewish. The raped woman is blamed for being a woman. The molested child is blamed for being a child. And I'm beside myself in disgust at our leaders.
The United Nations rejected the first resolution by Israel since 1976, stating that our children are innocent and we have every right to protect them. The Islamic nations, led by Egypt, have a problem with the Jewish people being defined as human, as the definition will mean the Palestinian Authority Muslims have committed murder of our children, according to the law. And I'm beside myself in tears and rage.
I learn the US troops are building more concrete and barbed-wire fences in Iraq to protect themselves from Muslim terrorists, while their Commander-in-Chief is angrily yelling at Israel for doing the same. And this is our homeland. And I'm beside myself, knowing suddenly why some folk tear their hair out.
Many Israelis are in abject fear of upsetting America's leaders. How dare we bother them with our need to survive, how dare we bother them with our woes of terror. And I'm beside myself in fear, not knowing what it is I fear, afraid of my own sense of clarity and non-clarity.
I'm talking to myself, asking why we fear this particular nation, the US, which is incapable of closing her borders during a War on Terror, is incapable of finding her own energy or even discussing the possibility, whose own president has called Islam "a religion of peace." Does this president know his soldiers are fighting Islamic terrorists?
And I'm stunned by our own insecurity and lack of faith. I'm stunned by our own lack of confidence.
I was cleaning out a closet yesterday and found a 1980 Kibbutz map. The picture of radiant Israelis, smiling with brilliance and boldness and self-confidence, felt like a relic, an antique of a long, long time ago.
The Muslim propaganda against the Jewish people and the Jewish State is dazzling. It is having great success in every corner of the world. The Muslim propaganda has boldly announced it is perfectly legal to murder Jewish children in cold blood, while MK Gal-On and Attorney General Rubenstein are blaming a website for incitement. And I'm beside myself, in utter shock.
Where is our anger? Where are the Jewish protests? Where is our outrage?