Perhaps, when the self perpetuating system of immorality that has become today's Israeli government was founded, no thought was given to the possibility that its forces would ever implode. Farsighted and optimistic, its craftsmen never foresaw the day when the downtrodden returnees whose state they founded would ever see beyond their world view to one in which Judaism is the epicenter of the conscience, not its archaic belligerent; where the cosmopolitan, assimilationist Jew is seen as the provocateur of anti-Semitism, rather than the poster boy of its extinction.
On June 26, 2005, between the caravans and the bulldozers, that day came.
Avi Bieber's refusal to expel and bully betrays the arrogant assumption of invincibility the system depends on. He is both a symbol and a symptom, not of some anarchistic malady, but of a budding revolution. With its coming, at long last, we may have an answer to the entreaty of slumping shoulders, wailing over the graves of shrapnelled loved ones, "Why?"
Why? Because it had to get this bad before we could see the lie. To see that the malevolence of the "leadership", borne on the jelly-spine of faithlessness, had to be rejected. To see that taking comfort in "concessions" only serves as the engine of self-destruction. To see that finding a place among the nations must be exchanged for being a symbol to the nations, even at the expense of likeability.
The truth is we were all warned. But a warning is always shadowed by an obligation. If the system is immoral, I have to oppose it. But if so, what will become of me? Avi Bieber's answer cut to the finish. He'll sit in jail, before the shrinking borders of the state jails us all. In doing so, he symbolizes what will become of "me" if we don't oppose it.
The apparatchiks will say that Avi is simply insubordinate. The cynics will say that Avi is a fraier. You know, just a naive, excitable do-gooder sacrificing himself for no tangible end. And that is exactly the point.
This revolution is not about taxes or tea parties. It is essentially a battle over control of the conscience ? our own and those we have been empowered by G-d to enlighten. Its arsenal only includes weapons that awaken and inspire. Its victims will only be self-interest and the illusion that safety can be bought at your neighbor's expense. We are all somebody's neighbor.
Its uniform is colored orange, proudly worn on car antennae and backpacks. Its soldiers are teenagers and adults, women and children, with and without kippas, all of whom have drafted themselves into a fighting force unified by belief and a disgust for the establishment's misrepresentation of Israel's mission. It is a war of the "enlightened" vs. fraiers like Avi Bieber.
It's a revolution that will prove that a faithless state buttressed by coalitions of corruption can't keep the traffic moving, much less defeat terror. Its soldiers will be distinguished not by the crimes they commit, but by those they refuse to commit. Its symbol will not be a raised rifle, but a lowered one, resting in the sands of Gush Katif. Jail will be its heroes' foxhole.
Some impressive gains have already been won. The government media is now widely seen as a partisan spin-machine serving the narrow minority in the hard-left. The police have become hysterical; their provocations are transparent, their brutality ever more unjustifiable. The Supreme Court has exposed itself as a zoo, with its thirty-minute kangaroo anti-Disengagement hearings, its composition manipulated to produce premeditated verdicts.
And in the end, all those fraiers, with their "impractical" solutions, unbreakable faith and unwillingness to accommodate "done deals" will have gone nose-to-nose with the system and won.
Fraiers like Avi Bieber. A simple, good young man who wants to give and not to take. He will sit content in jail, complete with the Almighty, humming to the soft cadence of a conscience at rest.
© Steven Ruddell June 29, 2005
On June 26, 2005, between the caravans and the bulldozers, that day came.
Avi Bieber's refusal to expel and bully betrays the arrogant assumption of invincibility the system depends on. He is both a symbol and a symptom, not of some anarchistic malady, but of a budding revolution. With its coming, at long last, we may have an answer to the entreaty of slumping shoulders, wailing over the graves of shrapnelled loved ones, "Why?"
Why? Because it had to get this bad before we could see the lie. To see that the malevolence of the "leadership", borne on the jelly-spine of faithlessness, had to be rejected. To see that taking comfort in "concessions" only serves as the engine of self-destruction. To see that finding a place among the nations must be exchanged for being a symbol to the nations, even at the expense of likeability.
The truth is we were all warned. But a warning is always shadowed by an obligation. If the system is immoral, I have to oppose it. But if so, what will become of me? Avi Bieber's answer cut to the finish. He'll sit in jail, before the shrinking borders of the state jails us all. In doing so, he symbolizes what will become of "me" if we don't oppose it.
The apparatchiks will say that Avi is simply insubordinate. The cynics will say that Avi is a fraier. You know, just a naive, excitable do-gooder sacrificing himself for no tangible end. And that is exactly the point.
This revolution is not about taxes or tea parties. It is essentially a battle over control of the conscience ? our own and those we have been empowered by G-d to enlighten. Its arsenal only includes weapons that awaken and inspire. Its victims will only be self-interest and the illusion that safety can be bought at your neighbor's expense. We are all somebody's neighbor.
Its uniform is colored orange, proudly worn on car antennae and backpacks. Its soldiers are teenagers and adults, women and children, with and without kippas, all of whom have drafted themselves into a fighting force unified by belief and a disgust for the establishment's misrepresentation of Israel's mission. It is a war of the "enlightened" vs. fraiers like Avi Bieber.
It's a revolution that will prove that a faithless state buttressed by coalitions of corruption can't keep the traffic moving, much less defeat terror. Its soldiers will be distinguished not by the crimes they commit, but by those they refuse to commit. Its symbol will not be a raised rifle, but a lowered one, resting in the sands of Gush Katif. Jail will be its heroes' foxhole.
Some impressive gains have already been won. The government media is now widely seen as a partisan spin-machine serving the narrow minority in the hard-left. The police have become hysterical; their provocations are transparent, their brutality ever more unjustifiable. The Supreme Court has exposed itself as a zoo, with its thirty-minute kangaroo anti-Disengagement hearings, its composition manipulated to produce premeditated verdicts.
And in the end, all those fraiers, with their "impractical" solutions, unbreakable faith and unwillingness to accommodate "done deals" will have gone nose-to-nose with the system and won.
Fraiers like Avi Bieber. A simple, good young man who wants to give and not to take. He will sit content in jail, complete with the Almighty, humming to the soft cadence of a conscience at rest.
© Steven Ruddell June 29, 2005