26

Ariel

It’s seven thirty in the evening. He’s late writing his second article. He put the earphones on and went on YouTube to find some classical music to help him concentrate. He chose a Tchaikovsky piano concerto by Barenboim. With the music in the background he surfed the sites of major newspapers to see if there was anything new. The leading article in Yisrael Hayom was titled “Have Our Problems Disappeared Forever?” Yedioth Ahronoth: “Did They Leave Until Further Notice?” He browsed through Haaretz more carefully and then looked at European and American newspapers. The New York Times had an article and an interview with an IDF officer titled “Divine Intervention by the Chosen People’s Army?” He found reports and interviews about the reactions of Palestinian refugees to the news in al-Akhbar and as-Safir. Some of them reported that Palestinian refugees had attempted to infiltrate the Galilee, but there were conflicting reports about their disappearance once they crossed the Lebanese-Israeli border, as if Palestine was devouring its children. Ariel thought it was a strange simile. He moved on to other Arab newspapers, but glossed over the op-eds. All he wanted to do was make sure there weren’t any news or official reactions worth mentioning, other than condemnation and disapproval.

During his army service, he learned to follow literature, popular culture, and radio and TV programs to know the general mood in the country. His superiors used to rely on whatever could be gathered in terms of data. Even after leaving the army, he kept taking the street’s pulse, and used this skill in his work as a journalist. He went to his Facebook account and took a quick look. He responded to a few messages and left others unread. Many friends from all over the world were checking on him and wondering if everything was OK. He looked at the pages of some journalist friends and sent messages asking them if they had any leads or new information. He then went to the “I’m Tired of Travelling” page, which had become so popular in the last six months, it had more than 10,000 followers. Ariel was an avid follower of the page and its author, Badriyya, especially after she started going to houses in Jaffa every Thursday to collect stories for a feature she called “Our Stories. . . . From Jaffa to the World.” She would knock on doors and ask people to tell her stories about Jaffa, or any other beloved city. Most preferred to talk about Jaffa. It didn’t matter whether the stories were true or not, she said. History is stories and stories have histories.

Badriyya used the page to discuss social issues, too, and not just politics. She wrote once that the emotional exploitation to which parents subject their children in our societies is a form of slavery:

When you try to settle down and pitch your tent away from the family, they start harping on the old song: “We deprived ourselves of everything so that you could study and dress well . . .” and so on. Now that is true, but does that mean I am a commodity that belongs to my parents, and I have to live the way they want, marry whom they choose, and study fields they think are best for me? In their future projections for their children, there is no failure. We are born to fulfill our parents’ dreams, but I don’t want to fulfill anyone’s dream. Can you believe that my father is emotionally exploiting my younger brother and objecting to his fiancée, because he doesn’t think her family suits ours? He tells him, “I’m not going to live much longer and I just want to be happy. I’m against this marriage. You’re my only hope and I toiled to see you marry someone of your stature. This marriage will kill me.” And similar things that my brother falls for. Why are young Arab men weaker than the young women? Is it because they stand to lose everything if they defy society? Or is it because they are raised to think that they are more important and they reap the material benefits of their privilege, but they are so cowardly that they cannot say to hell with material privileges?

The questions and issues Badriyya used to put on her page caused quite an uproar. Her cousin was upset and said that she was scandalizing the family by divulging details about their lives, and by revealing her personal opinions about touchy subjects, such as premarital sex, faith or lack thereof, and politics.

“That’s it. We will not be silent any longer!” was the title of her last post, after the passage of the “Safety Belt” law in the Knesset. The draft law had been ratified two days before the disappearance. Is there a relation? Ariel wondered, but then cast that thought away and read Badriyya’s last post.

For all those who did not see or read the Knesset’s racist fascist speech today, a full translation is provided below with my own straightforward commentary. Read for yourselves to see how we are governed by a fascist state.

Prime Minister: “Ladies and gentleman. Members of the only democratic parliament in the middle east . . .”

He was interrupted by one of the Arab members who yelled, “Titi, don’t you read the news? What kind of a democracy is this when you are occupying another people?” The chairman struck his gavel like a butcher striking a sheep, and said to Atallah, “Atallah, if you interrupt the prime minister and disrupt the session again, I will have to order you to leave the hall.”

The prime minister continued his speech with a few extemporaneous words in response to Atallah:

“Had you been in an Arab country, Atallah, they wouldn’t even give you the right to speak. It is our democratic state that allows those like you to speak.”

A storm of applause drowned out the objections and responses from other Arab members, and those who call themselves leftists, whose numbers were dwindling. Titi continued with self-restraint:

“Esteemed Knesset members, we cannot allow the terrorists to kill democracy. When a woman goes to the doctor, and he discovers that she is afflicted with cancer, the first thing he does is treat the cancer. If the cancer has spread in the breast, he removes that breast. Otherwise, the woman’s body perishes. The land of Israel is like that woman. It is threatened by cancerous cells and by those who live inside it and want to wipe it out. The law we are about to vote on is a precautionary law to protect us from the spread of this disease. I call on you to vote on this law, which stipulates that any person who doesn’t celebrate our state and its independence must be deported. The security belt we have designated south of the desert is a security belt to protect us from their extremism, and from the extremism of other Arabs who are crawling from every direction. If we do not bury these cancerous cells, they will devour our bodies. They have declared war on us by invading this body, our land. It’s either us or them. Either our rebirth, modernism, and democracy . . . or those who want to crush our existence, and who neither recognize it nor our independence. They talk about this thing called ‘nakba’ and refuse to recognize the Jewishness of this state. They have stolen our joy, victories, and even our catastrophe. The catastrophe was ours.

“It was our victory when we fought the Arabs. And our catastrophe when, like all soldiers in a war, we were forced to kill some of them. When that happened, it was a tragedy for us. We don’t kill, and are not used to killing. Because our hearts are merciful and our army is ethical, we suffer even when we kill those who want to kill us. What happened in 1948 was our catastrophe, but we persevered, as we did in the past, and we built one of the strongest and most modern states in the world. It is the only democracy in the middle east. We have allowed the rest of the Arabs, who wished to remain on our land in peace, to stay here. If they want to live here, they will have to accept our conditions. Otherwise, the borders are wide open and they can go to their Arab states.

Some kind-hearted fellow countrymen are like a virus that helps the cancer spread in the patient’s body, instead of removing, weakening, or controlling it. These wretched leftists, who are fooled by Arabs, say that we are building concentration camps for Arabs, like the ones the Nazis built for Jews. I say to them, if you don’t put these people in the security belt camps, the representatives of al-Qaida will put you on ships and throw you into the sea. At best, they will send you back to the Europe that slaughtered us.”

The hall was infused with zeal. Those elected by the people applauded the elected prime minister. The crowd was confident of everything and anything, “like triumphant lions.”

Badriyya added a comment: “Had this law been passed in Honolulu, the world would have been outraged, but because it is the state of cancer, no one says a word until another holocaust takes place. And then we’ll officially be the new Jews!”

Ariel looked at the comments and their time codes, especially the last one by Badriyya. It was posted at eleven the day before. He felt a lump in his throat. He used to get upset upon hearing his Arab friends’ complaints and would waiver between understanding and disapproval.