Twenty Israeli teenagers were killed on International Children’s Day. Most of them were girls. All of them were immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
When the bomb exploded at the "Dolphi" youth disco, we were sitting around a birthday table at a friend's birthday gathering. Before leaving, someone suggested turning on the television…
Respectable Fanaticism
It happened on June 1, on International Children's Day. This is not a coincidence, but a symbol. Our children do not fall under the general rule. Most of those killed this time were "Russian" (in Israel, "Russians" refers to anyone who came from CIS countries), because "Dolphi," it turns out, is a "Russian" disco. Most of the victims were girls aged 14 to 19, because the disco, for promotional purposes, offered free entry to girls. Many of them were students of the same "Russian" (mathematics-oriented) school.
Looking at the simple amateur photographs of the murdered girls — their not yet fully formed, touching, almost familiar faces — I could not shake a complex feeling of closeness, of kinship, and of some unclear guilt for their deaths, so senseless and undeserved. I felt the urge to address someone in power: "Couldn’t you have waited a little longer? Let them live. Let them at least have time to make a mistake…"
Yet even the face of the suicide bomber turned out to be rather pleasant, almost intelligent-looking. He was already 22 years old. He had spent a year or two studying in Italy. His father, a seemingly respectable gentleman, said on the radio that he was proud of his son, and that if he had twenty sons, twenty discos would already have been blown up, bringing joy to his kind old heart.
Here, the break in understanding occurs. We belong to different civilizations. Of course, we remember the forced enthusiasm of Soviet propaganda, but even fear alone would not have been enough for someone to utter such words just a day after their son’s death. It is impossible to explain this asymmetry in our confrontation to a European humanist. A humanist, by definition, always sees two sides to every issue.
And indeed, there are two sides. On one hand, half a year ago, the parents of Israelis killed by Palestinian terror traveled to meet Arafat, pleading with him to stop the bloodshed. And Arafat, of course, smiled at them with sympathy, like a father.
On the other hand, a seven-year-old Palestinian girl in Bethlehem, when asked by a television reporter what she wanted for the New Year, innocently replied: "That all Jews be killed."
Only former Soviet citizens, raised under the shadow of the KGB’s disinformation apparatus, can understand this "paradox." And they, in turn, cannot understand why Israeli television does not show the world images of the torn bodies of its citizens.
Arafat learned much from the former "Evil Empire." Like Fidel Castro, he proved to be a far more viable follower of Soviet political culture than the USSR itself. The difference — and the success — of his movement compared to European terrorist groups supported (or perhaps created) by the KGB (such as Germany’s Baader-Meinhof group or Italy’s Red Brigades) lies in this: European terrorists acted against their own humanistic Christian tradition, whereas Arafat operated within a Muslim environment that neither knows humanism nor demands justification.
If, for Europeans, the question of the relationship between ends and means has always been troubling ("Can the temple of universal happiness be built on the tears of a child?"), then for Arafat, his terrorist methods fully correspond to his goals and align with the collective dream of a crushing victory over the "infidels." European terrorists sacrificed themselves, taking sin upon their souls, breaking with morality and society in the name of a higher cause. Members of Fatah, on the contrary, fulfill what they see as an honorable duty and receive approval from their families and religious authorities.
A new element introduced by Arafat was his skillful use of European clichés: "the Palestinian people," "Israeli occupation," "neocolonialism," "Palestinian refugees," "uprising" (intifada), "right of return." These terms often do not correspond to their literal meaning, yet together they create in the European mind (including that of European Jews) a sense of obligation toward the Palestinian population — a kind of troubled conscience that arises in any decent person when confronted with another's poverty and suffering.
It is on this feeling that Arafat and his circle build their propaganda, while continuing to spend international donations on luxurious villas and at the same time producing homemade explosives to fire at Israel’s densely populated areas. Any response inevitably leads to new Palestinian casualties. As Knesset member Yuri Stern said: "We resemble Gulliver, tied down by the threads of the Lilliputians, afraid to move so as not to crush them."
The root of the problem, however, lies far beyond daily politics. It threatens not only Israelis on the front lines, but the entire Western world. To avoid subjectivity, I will quote almost verbatim a conversation I had five years ago with the well-known Israeli writer Yoram Kaniuk, who devoted many years to the cause of peace with the Arabs:
— What is happening to intellectuals in Arab countries? You wrote that most young Arab intellectuals are turning toward Islamic fundamentalism.
— Seventy percent of Arab students who studied at elite universities like Oxford, Harvard, Heidelberg, or Yale return home as fundamentalists. The best become the worst.
Representatives of the Arab intellectual elite choose fundamentalism because they cannot meet the demands of modern technological society. In all areas of contemporary life, they find themselves second-rate, unable to compete. They are hurt that Israel ranks among the leading high-tech countries. To restore their lost sense of self-worth, they return to their archaic culture and ancient religion, which they can still take pride in. With this culture, they defend themselves against the demands of a modern competitive world in which they have been defeated.
The fact that Jews have surpassed them so significantly drives them mad. And they remind themselves that once, long ago, they too had achievements in philosophy, poetry, and even mathematics…
This is not the problem of individuals, but of sovereign states — Lebanon, Syria, Egypt. Those who return there after studying abroad are second-rate. Those who are truly capable simply do not return.
— Then what is the problem of Israeli Arabs, who have achieved success where others have failed?
— They do not want to receive these advantages from our hands. The idea that we are their patrons offends them… Our very presence in the heart of the Arab world is unbearable to them — we are a foreign body.
— Then why did you, Israeli intellectuals, strive so hard for them?
— So that the Israeli government would recognize Arafat as the representative of the Palestinian people and enter negotiations for the creation of a Palestinian state. And precisely when we achieved this, the Arab intelligentsia broke off all contact with us.
— So they deceived you?
— No, no — we deceived ourselves. They simply used us… The situation is tragic: Arab intellectuals do not want peace with us. They express the true desire of the Arab world — the destruction of Israel.
— But if that is true, then was the entire "peace process" a mistake? Why do you keep fighting so desperately… for something unknown?
— Because I feel that I must do everything possible so that the Arabs have their own state. I need this state in order to feel like a human being. We owe it to them, and above all, it is demanded by historical justice.
— What is historical justice? Perhaps the idea of equal justice for all is flawed?
— Perhaps. But I want to be right within myself… All these plans, all dreams of peace were born in the minds of Israeli intellectuals — writers, poets, people of art. And we invited the Arab intelligentsia to fight together for these ideas.
— But they may never have shared your ideas.
— We must give them a state, and then we will know we acted correctly…