In a Jerusalem park one morning in 2004, I had a conversation with a sweet, elderly Yemenite Jewish man in his late eighties. His handbag sported a white ribbon and an orange ribbon – at the time, the State of Israel was debating the withdrawal of its citizens from the Gaza Strip: White favored pullout and Orange favored staying. We spoke for a long while and his kind and loving manner toward me and my year-old son coupled with his support for both sides of the painful debate to leave/stay in Gaza showed him to be a sensitive, thoughtful person.
As over 100 suicide bombings inside Israel's borders had taken place in the previous 3 years, at some point I said, “Our poor country finds itself in such danger these days.” His response was immediate and swift, “The Israeli Government can stop the terrorist threat immediately but it doesn't want to. We could stop the terrorism tomorrow, but the leadership is afraid to do it.”
Speechless, I asked him to explain.
He told me the story of his early 20th century childhood in the Silwan area of Jerusalem. Silwan was a tense village of Yemenite Jews on one side and Arabs on the other. One evening, shots were fired from the Arab village and Jewish children were killed. The Arab villagers denied any knowledge, participation, or responsibility for the shootings. Two days later in broad daylight his older brother and a group of others went to the two Arab houses from where the shots were fired, took out all the inhabitants of the houses and killed them. There was never another incident or threat of danger from their Arab neighbors.
Speechless.
[POSTIFICATION: I DO NOT CONDONE, ENCOURAGE, OR DESIRE FOR ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE TO UTIILZE THE TACTIC DESCRIBED ABOVE. MY DESIRE IS FOR ALL PARTIES CONCERNED ABOUT ISRAEL TO EITHER: A) BE REVOLTED BY THE VULGARITY OF THE ACT, AND/OR, B) FACTOR INTO THE EQUATION THE REALITY OF MIDDLE EASTERN CULTURE EXPRESSED IN THE STORY WHEN CRITIQUING ISRAEL’S SECURITY DECISIONS – AND PROPOSING ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS]
