A moving essay by Paula Stern.
My eyes fail with tears, my insides churn…at the shattering of my people. (Eicha/Book of Lamentations 1:11)Over a decade ago towards the end of a hot summer, I landed in Israel. It was August 17 and exhausted as I was, I was still exhilarated to realize that I had finally fulfilled a childhood dream and brought my family home to Israel.
As I sat on the floor in my synagogue this past Saturday night and listened to the mournful tone of the reading of the Book of Lamentations, I thought of the irony that on the anniversary of the day I fulfilled my dream in finding the place I truly belonged, so many might yet experience the nightmare of losing their homes.
You made us filth and refuse among the nations. All our enemies jeered at us; panic and pitfall were ours, ravage and ruin. (Eicha 3: 45-48)Back in 1993, just one month after my arrival, then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords and over the next few months told me that I and tens of thousands of others were meaningless entities to him. He didn’t care about settlers and apparently, because I had chosen to buy a house one kilometer to the right of a line on a map rather than one kilometer to the left, I was a settler. I decided that if Rabin didn’t care about me, I didn’t care about him, and gladly joined an opposing party, believing that they would deliver security and peace to a nation desperate for both.
One failed agreement after another followed. Madrid and Wye, Sharm el-Sheik and the illustrious roadmap to destruction were thrust at the people and still government after government failed to understand the most basic of principles. You cannot make peace alone.
We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows. We pay money to drink our water, obtain our wood at a price. Upon our necks we are pursued; we toil, but nothing is left us. We stretched out a hand to Egypt, and to Assyria to be satisfied with bread...Slaves ruled us, there is no rescuer from their hands. (Eicha 5: 2-8)Years of violence have yielded nothing. We have lost mothers and fathers, grandparents and children. Doctors and teachers, friends and neighbors. Finally, we were given a clear choice: unilateral action (Amnon Mitzna’s platform) or security and peace, strength and conviction (Ariel Sharon’s platform). We would not retreat under fire, Sharon promised again and again. We would not negotiate with terrorists. In a democratic election, a referendum of the people, we voted for security and peace. We demanded strength in the face of aggression. We chose Ariel Sharon, father of the settler movement, the lion of Judea, the bulldozer, the brilliant tactician. The man who kept his word.
And then, the unthinkable happened. The Lion of Israel, Ariel Sharon, became the Prince of Palestine. Black became white. Right became wrong. All that he promised turned into lies and betrayal. All that he stood for became as nothing in the face of his weak, corrupt manipulations. ...
