The December 20 issue of Time Magazine features an article, “Palestinian Youth, Growing the next generation of Israel’s adversaries,” by Karl Vick, in which he contends that the separation wall, erected by Israel to separate Israel and the Palestinian Authority, is the reason for the separation of the mind, for the absence of familiarity. It is the rationale and the basis, he claims, “there is little chance for the two peoples, one day living as neighbors in peace.”
Really?
“It’s the wall,” he says, rather than the constant brainwashing of the Palestinian youth by their leaders and their schoolteachers.
“It’s the wall,” not the rise of political Islam with its anti-Semitic venom.
“It’s the wall, which isolates the Palestinians, taking them farther away from the Mediterranean coast, and from orientation to the West,” not their seventh century desert Jihad culture and teaching, portraying America and Israel as the latest reincarnation of the devil. Oh, no. Blame it on the wall.
Let’s examine the true nature of the separation wall.
It could be seen by the Arabs as the demarcation between the state they are striving for and the despised Jews and their “Zionist entity,” an observation which caused rightist opposition to its construction in Israel.
It makes it difficult for those who wish to cross illegally from one side to the other. And in Israel’s case, it prevents terrorists and suicide bombers from crossing into Israeli towns and neighborhoods, killing innocent women and children in the killers’ quest for a fake promise of paradise.
It does not prevent Palestinians from crossing legally into Israel, as thousands of them do on a daily basis, in quest of medical care in Israeli hospitals.
It does not prevent Arab children from learning the truth about Israel and Israelis in PA schools.
It does not prevent PA residents from appreciating and relating to Western culture due to their inability to reach the Mediterranean — Islam pulls it off for them.
The real problem is that when Palestinians see the wall, they see an end to their dream of an expanded Palestine stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, where Jews are no longer the masters of that narrow stretch of land they call Israel and perhaps without any Jews at all.
The Palestinians do not like the wall because it formalizes the fact that Israel is not part of Palestine; it is a different country ruled by different people. The wall does not enclose the Palestinians in a prisonlike state unless they make their own towns and villages feel like prison.
In the fifties and sixties, when I grew up in Israel, the country was young, isolated and tiny. I did not hate America, I loved and admired it, even though I had never been outside the boundaries of my petite world. I knew what Europe was like, even though I had never visited Paris, London or Zurich. I read books, saw pictures, watched movies. I did not feel isolated like those PA Arabs who could benefit from the Internet as well, only if they truly wanted to learn about Israel and its people.
Time Magazine had it wrong again. Karl Vick offered a distorted picture of the root-cause dominating the Palestinian “misunderstanding” of what Israel is.
It’s not the separation wall, Karl. It is the persistent brainwashing; it’s the Palestinian’s culture of hate and hubris. It’s the Palestinian’s unwillingness to accept Israel for what it is — a Jewish state.