God's chosen people
Jostein Gaarder, Aftenposten 05.08.06
There is no turning back. It is time to learn a new lesson: We do no
longer recognize the state of Israel. We could not recognize the
South African apartheid regime, nor did we recognize the Afghan
Taliban regime. Then there were many who did not recognize Saddam
Hussein's Iraq or the Serbs' ethnic cleansing. We must now get used
to the idea: The state of Israel in its current form is history.
We do not believe in the notion of God's chosen people. We laugh at
this people's fancies and weep over its misdeeds. To act as God's
chosen people is not only stupid and arrogant, but a crime against
humanity. We call it racism.
Limits to tolerance
There are limits to our patience, and there are limits to our
tolerance. We do not believe in divine promises as justification for
occupation and apartheid. We have left the Middle Ages behind. We
laugh uneasily at those who still believe that the God of flora,
fauna, and galaxies has selected one people in particular as his
favorite and given it funny stone tablets, burning bushes, and a
license to kill.
We call child murderers 'child murderers' and will never accept that
such have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages. We
say but this: Shame on all apartheid, shame on ethnic cleansing,
shame on every terrorist strike against civilians, be it carried out
by Hamas, Hizballah, or the state of Israel!
Unscrupulous art of war
We acknowledge and pay heed to Europe's deep responsibility for the
plight of the Jews, for the disgraceful harassment, the pogroms, and
the Holocaust. It was historically and morally necessary for Jews to
get their own home. However, the state of Israel, with its
unscrupulous art of war and its disgusting weapons, has massacred its
own legitimacy. It has systematically flaunted International Law,
international conventions, and countless UN resolutions, and it can
no longer expect protection from same. It has carpet bombed the
recognition of the world. But fear not! The time of trouble shall
soon be over. The state of Israel has seen its Soweto.
We are now at the watershed. There is no turning back. The state of
Israel has raped the recognition of the world and shall have no peace
until it lays down its arms.
Without defense, without skin
May spirit and word sweep away the apartheid walls of Israel. The
state of Israel does not exist. It is now without defense, without
skin. May the world therefore have mercy on the civilian population.
For it is not civilian individuals at whom our doomsaying is
directed.
We wish the people of Israel well, nothing but well, but we reserve
the right not to eat Jaffa oranges as long as they taste foul and are
poisonous. It was endurable to live some years without the blue
grapes of apartheid.
They celebrate their triumphs
We do not believe that Israel mourns forty killed Lebanese children
more than it for over three thousand years has lamented forty years
in the desert. We note that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs
like they once cheered the scourges of the Lord as "fitting
punishment" for the people of Egypt. (In that tale, the Lord, God of
Israel, appears as an insatiable sadist.) We query whether most
Israelis think that one Israeli life is worth more than forty
Palestinian or Lebanese lives.
For we have seen pictures of little Israeli girls writing hateful
greetings on the bombs to be dropped on the civilian population of
Lebanon and Palestine. Little Israeli girls are not cute when they
strut with glee at death and torment across the fronts.
The retribution of blood vengeance
We do not recognize the rhetoric of the state of Israel. We do not
recognize the spiral of retribution of the blood vengeance with "an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." We do not recognize the
principle of one or a thousand Arab eyes for one Israeli eye. We do
not recognize collective punishment or population-wide diets as
political weapons. Two thousand years have passed since a Jewish
rabbi criticized the ancient doctrine of "an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth."
He said: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." We do not
recognize a state founded on antihumanistic principles and on the
ruins of an archaic national and war religion. Or as Albert
Schweitzer expressed it: "Humanitarianism consists in never
sacrificing a human being to a purpose."
Compassion and forgiveness
We do not recognize the old Kingdom of David as a model for the 21st
century map of the Middle East. The Jewish rabbi claimed two thousand
years ago that the Kingdom of God is not a martial restoration of the
Kingdom of David, but that the Kingdom of God is within us and among
us. The Kingdom of God is compassion and forgiveness.
Two thousand years have passed since the Jewish rabbi disarmed and
humanized the old rhetoric of war. Even in his time, the first
Zionist terrorists were operating.
Israel does not listen
For two thousand years, we have rehearsed the syllabus of humanism,
but Israel does not listen. It was not the Pharisee that helped the
man who lay by the wayside, having fallen prey to robbers. It was a
Samaritan; today we would say, a Palestinian. For we are human first
of all -- then Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Or as the Jewish rabbi
said: "And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than
others?" We do not accept the abduction of soldiers. But nor do we
accept the deportation of whole populations or the abduction of
legally elected parliamentarians and government ministers.
We recognize the state of Israel of 1948, but not the one of 1967. It
is the state of Israel that fails to recognize, respect, or defer to
the internationally lawful Israeli state of 1948. Israel wants more;
more water and more villages. To obtain this, there are those who
want, with God's assistance, a final solution to the Palestinian
problem. The Palestinians have so many other countries, certain
Israeli politicians have argued; we have only one.
The USA or the world?
Or as the highest protector of the state of Israel puts it: "May God
continue to bless America." A little child took note of that. She
turned to her mother, saying: "Why does the President always end his
speeches with 'God bless America'? Why not, 'God bless the world'?"
Then there was a Norwegian poet who let out this childlike sigh of
the heart: "Why doth Humanity so slowly progress?" It was he that
wrote so beautifully of the Jew and the Jewess. But he rejected the
notion of God's chosen people. He personally liked to call himself a
Muhammedan.
Calm and mercy
We do not recognize the state of Israel. Not today, not as of this
writing, not in the hour of grief and wrath. If the entire Israeli
nation should fall to its own devices and parts of the population
have to flee the occupied areas into another diaspora, then we say:
May the surroundings stay calm and show them mercy. It is forever a
crime without mitigation to lay hand on refugees and stateless
people.
Peace and free passage for the evacuating civilian population no
longer protected by a state. Fire not at the fugitives! Take not aim
at them! They are vulnerable now like snails without shells,
vulnerable like slow caravans of Palestinian and Lebanese refugees,
defenseless like women and children and the old in Qana, Gaza, Sabra,
and Chatilla. Give the Israeli refugees shelter, give them milk and
honey!
Let not one Israeli child be deprived of life. Far too many children
and civilians have already been murdered.
Jostein Gaarder, Aftenposten 05.08.06
There is no turning back. It is time to learn a new lesson: We do no
longer recognize the state of Israel. We could not recognize the
South African apartheid regime, nor did we recognize the Afghan
Taliban regime. Then there were many who did not recognize Saddam
Hussein's Iraq or the Serbs' ethnic cleansing. We must now get used
to the idea: The state of Israel in its current form is history.
We do not believe in the notion of God's chosen people. We laugh at
this people's fancies and weep over its misdeeds. To act as God's
chosen people is not only stupid and arrogant, but a crime against
humanity. We call it racism.
Limits to tolerance
There are limits to our patience, and there are limits to our
tolerance. We do not believe in divine promises as justification for
occupation and apartheid. We have left the Middle Ages behind. We
laugh uneasily at those who still believe that the God of flora,
fauna, and galaxies has selected one people in particular as his
favorite and given it funny stone tablets, burning bushes, and a
license to kill.
We call child murderers 'child murderers' and will never accept that
such have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages. We
say but this: Shame on all apartheid, shame on ethnic cleansing,
shame on every terrorist strike against civilians, be it carried out
by Hamas, Hizballah, or the state of Israel!
Unscrupulous art of war
We acknowledge and pay heed to Europe's deep responsibility for the
plight of the Jews, for the disgraceful harassment, the pogroms, and
the Holocaust. It was historically and morally necessary for Jews to
get their own home. However, the state of Israel, with its
unscrupulous art of war and its disgusting weapons, has massacred its
own legitimacy. It has systematically flaunted International Law,
international conventions, and countless UN resolutions, and it can
no longer expect protection from same. It has carpet bombed the
recognition of the world. But fear not! The time of trouble shall
soon be over. The state of Israel has seen its Soweto.
We are now at the watershed. There is no turning back. The state of
Israel has raped the recognition of the world and shall have no peace
until it lays down its arms.
Without defense, without skin
May spirit and word sweep away the apartheid walls of Israel. The
state of Israel does not exist. It is now without defense, without
skin. May the world therefore have mercy on the civilian population.
For it is not civilian individuals at whom our doomsaying is
directed.
We wish the people of Israel well, nothing but well, but we reserve
the right not to eat Jaffa oranges as long as they taste foul and are
poisonous. It was endurable to live some years without the blue
grapes of apartheid.
They celebrate their triumphs
We do not believe that Israel mourns forty killed Lebanese children
more than it for over three thousand years has lamented forty years
in the desert. We note that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs
like they once cheered the scourges of the Lord as "fitting
punishment" for the people of Egypt. (In that tale, the Lord, God of
Israel, appears as an insatiable sadist.) We query whether most
Israelis think that one Israeli life is worth more than forty
Palestinian or Lebanese lives.
For we have seen pictures of little Israeli girls writing hateful
greetings on the bombs to be dropped on the civilian population of
Lebanon and Palestine. Little Israeli girls are not cute when they
strut with glee at death and torment across the fronts.
The retribution of blood vengeance
We do not recognize the rhetoric of the state of Israel. We do not
recognize the spiral of retribution of the blood vengeance with "an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." We do not recognize the
principle of one or a thousand Arab eyes for one Israeli eye. We do
not recognize collective punishment or population-wide diets as
political weapons. Two thousand years have passed since a Jewish
rabbi criticized the ancient doctrine of "an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth."
He said: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." We do not
recognize a state founded on antihumanistic principles and on the
ruins of an archaic national and war religion. Or as Albert
Schweitzer expressed it: "Humanitarianism consists in never
sacrificing a human being to a purpose."
Compassion and forgiveness
We do not recognize the old Kingdom of David as a model for the 21st
century map of the Middle East. The Jewish rabbi claimed two thousand
years ago that the Kingdom of God is not a martial restoration of the
Kingdom of David, but that the Kingdom of God is within us and among
us. The Kingdom of God is compassion and forgiveness.
Two thousand years have passed since the Jewish rabbi disarmed and
humanized the old rhetoric of war. Even in his time, the first
Zionist terrorists were operating.
Israel does not listen
For two thousand years, we have rehearsed the syllabus of humanism,
but Israel does not listen. It was not the Pharisee that helped the
man who lay by the wayside, having fallen prey to robbers. It was a
Samaritan; today we would say, a Palestinian. For we are human first
of all -- then Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Or as the Jewish rabbi
said: "And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than
others?" We do not accept the abduction of soldiers. But nor do we
accept the deportation of whole populations or the abduction of
legally elected parliamentarians and government ministers.
We recognize the state of Israel of 1948, but not the one of 1967. It
is the state of Israel that fails to recognize, respect, or defer to
the internationally lawful Israeli state of 1948. Israel wants more;
more water and more villages. To obtain this, there are those who
want, with God's assistance, a final solution to the Palestinian
problem. The Palestinians have so many other countries, certain
Israeli politicians have argued; we have only one.
The USA or the world?
Or as the highest protector of the state of Israel puts it: "May God
continue to bless America." A little child took note of that. She
turned to her mother, saying: "Why does the President always end his
speeches with 'God bless America'? Why not, 'God bless the world'?"
Then there was a Norwegian poet who let out this childlike sigh of
the heart: "Why doth Humanity so slowly progress?" It was he that
wrote so beautifully of the Jew and the Jewess. But he rejected the
notion of God's chosen people. He personally liked to call himself a
Muhammedan.
Calm and mercy
We do not recognize the state of Israel. Not today, not as of this
writing, not in the hour of grief and wrath. If the entire Israeli
nation should fall to its own devices and parts of the population
have to flee the occupied areas into another diaspora, then we say:
May the surroundings stay calm and show them mercy. It is forever a
crime without mitigation to lay hand on refugees and stateless
people.
Peace and free passage for the evacuating civilian population no
longer protected by a state. Fire not at the fugitives! Take not aim
at them! They are vulnerable now like snails without shells,
vulnerable like slow caravans of Palestinian and Lebanese refugees,
defenseless like women and children and the old in Qana, Gaza, Sabra,
and Chatilla. Give the Israeli refugees shelter, give them milk and
honey!
Let not one Israeli child be deprived of life. Far too many children
and civilians have already been murdered.