August 15th, '05
Daring to Use the "Chet" Word

In Hebrew, the letter "chet" stands for Churban" - destruction, a term specifically reserved for a pair of Jewish catastrophes, the destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem. It is a destruction that Jews around the world commemorate with fasting and prayer on the 9th day of the Jewish month of Av. Yesterday.

Last night, I heard the newly-appointed chief of staff giving a press conference outside the closed Kissufim entrance to the Gaza Strip. It was the eve of a very different destruction. Over the next few days, thousands of Jews - some of whom have lived in Gaza for three generations - will be forcibly evicted from their homes in order to make way for the Judenrein Palestinian State. A state that will be ruled over by the "moderate" forces of the Palestinian Authority. We hope.

The Chief of Staff struck a conciliatory tone. He emphasized that the army's mission had been dubbed "Help for Our Brothers." This is not a war, he said.

Only in one section of his speech did he let a tone of anger creep into his voice. The settlers, he said, were irresponsibly throwing around an inflammatory word: Churban, and this had to stop.

In the news clip I heard, the Chief of Staff didn't elaborate about what exactly it was about the "chet" word that bothered him so. I imagine it was the attachment of a religiously-weighted term in what, for the army, should be just another mission. After all, the military is simply doing its job, carrying out the decisions of Israel's democratically elected government. Perhaps he feared that the use of this term would fan the flames of religiously-inspired resistance. Not an unreasonable fear.

A dear friend of mine surprised me the other day by coming out firmly in favor of the disengagement plan. He cited the conflict between demography and democracy; better, he said, to unload 1.5 million Arabs onto an independent Palestine, and preserve a Jewish majority that will continue to vote in the interests of the State of Israel. "I don't understand how anyone who calls himself a Zionist can be against this plan," he said.

Yes. But.

No one in the Israeli leadership talks about the Gaza pull-out in terms of demography. Instead, they say that this retreat will bring more security, and a cessation of the terror we have been living through, like an endless nightmare, for the past five years.

I wish someone would tell that to the Palestinians. Both the PA and Hamas are celebrating the eviction of the Jews of 21 Gaza communities as a military victory. They are competing with each other, each group trying to take more credit for the terror that finally drove the Jews out.

“The Palestinians are about to fulfill a dream," says PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. "Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip next week is but the preface to more withdrawals on the road to a Palestinian state with Jerusalem its capital."

Churban indeed.

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