Theatre Of The Absurd

GOODBYE 30, January 11, 2009


THEATRE OF THE ABSURD



This war is all a fake. All show business. True, people are dying. But they aren’t important people. They are, Jews and Arabs, the cannon fodder of history. Or, if you will, the dispensable extras.

If the war can’t be as carefully scripted as a Broadway play because there is no way to totally control the unexpected, then at least it is Improvisation Theatre. And, as in most improvisation, the outline and major points are set beforehand.

The incompetents who lead us, facing electoral defeat, have established their Tough Guys and Dolls credentials by responding to those who have been attacking us with impunity for years. Now they add to their macho [b]luster by apparently defying The Whole Civilized World demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities. They will preen and pose, and when convinced that the lumpenproletariat will vote them back into office, will accept a ‘cease fire’ that will last until they are again safely in the seats of power. And a day, a week, a month, a year later, the attacks will begin again. And our people, shell-shocked and punch drunk, will be amenable to whatever ‘solutions’ are offered.



What drives me crazy is how my people, the national religious public, high on fantasies of optimism, fail to understand what is happening. Even Gush Katif has taught us nothing.

In 1917 the Soviets closed the churches, persecuted the priests, made religion an object of contempt, and declared nationalism irrelevant to the great march of World Socialism. When the Germans attacked in 1939 the Soviets realized that the Russian people would not lay down their lives for World Socialism. So the churches were reopened, priests reinstated, and the Russian masses fought the Germans for God and Mother Russia. And when the war was won, the Soviets reverted to repression instead of expression.

So it is today. The Enlightened Ones, who despise us with no less vehemence than did the Soviets, are allowing religion to appear in formerly ‘no go’ areas like the electronic media. Newsreaders, displaying enough cleavage to embarrass a prostitute, are using terms like “God willing”, “With God’s help”, etc. Soldiers are often shown at prayer, being blessed by rabbis, expressing their hope that the Almighty will protect them. Even Chabad, banned for years from army bases, is allowed to approach soldiers once again. And my people, both here and abroad, are ecstatic at what they see as a religious revival portending wonderful things to come.

Beautiful fools. Wonderful fools. Holy fools. But fools, nevertheless. When things quiet down the Enlightened Ones will again declare manifestations of belief as regressive primitivism and force faith back to its ‘out of sight, out of mind’ status.



I am doubtless too far gone in my misery to share Rachel’s optimism as expressed in her latest, GKV 148, sent off hours ago. It is not that I don’t see, or appreciate, the outpouring of sympathy and affection from many ordinary Israelis.

The problem is that all these acts of kindness are insignificant in light of the immediate threat to our very existence.

Yet Rachel is not a fool, and it may well be that these acts of kindness are vastly more significant than what I perceive as the overall threat.

May she be right, and I wrong.



We were visited by journalists on Thursday. Rachel was brilliant in presenting our position. La Passionara at her best. The program will be shown on “Dan Rather Reports” on HD Net, whatever that is. It airs on Tuesday, the 13th, at 8pm NY time and is re-shown throughout the week at various times. It can also be downloaded as a podcast, whatever that is, from “i Tunes”.

Their visit, for all Rachel’s brilliance, left me in despair. Here were three Jews, two Americans and an Israeli, and they might as well have been Martians in their inability and unwillingness to understand us. I have no doubt we will be written off as right wing fanatics, and our appearance balanced by a ‘Death to the Jews’-spouting Imam to show extremists from both sides.

When, in conversation, I stated that we have seen many miracles, and gave the example of forty Iraqi scuds killing over two thousand Iranians in Teheran while thirty-nine Iraqi scuds killed only one person in Tel Aviv, I was met with blank stares. The producer, an Israeli woman, said “That was no miracle. Most Tel Aviv residents had left the city for Eilat.” Who was it who said ‘there are none so blind as those who will not see’?

However educated, intelligent and charming these people are, there is no chance of their understanding us, much less sympathizing with us. Though Rachel disagrees, I no longer see the point in even trying.

We have always been hated, and we have always tried ingratiating ourselves with those who hate us. Whatever we try, be it fawning, begging, bribing, identifying with them against our own, has not worked. Worse, such behavior has added contempt to the hatred. When hatred combines with contempt, we are at our most vulnerable. When hatred combines with fear, we are least vulnerable.

Note how from 1948 until the Oslo Accords in 1992, when there was no ‘peace process’, we were feared. And there were few deaths from terrorism. From Oslo to the present, during a continual ‘peace process’, we have been killed in the thousands.

Since we cannot avoid being hated, let us at least be feared as well. It’s safer.

moshe