Morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Must have more coffee.
Ein Li Eretz Aheret.
Since 1948 the Jewish people stand their ground on the land of their ancestors for they have none other.
“I have no other land
Even if my ground is burning
Only one word in Hebrew penetrates
My veins, my soul
With an aching body, a hungry heart
Here is my home.”
The verse is from a song by Ehud Manor with the Hebrew title I started this piece, meaning “I have no other land”. It was written in 1982, during one of Israel’s incursions into Lebanon I discussed in one of my previous writings. Manor’s brother was killed in that war and it was that personal tragedy that inspired him to write this song. Since then it has been adopted as a rallying cry by all sides in the Israeli political spectrum but it echoes a much older spirit.
The spirit of recogintion Am Yisrael cannot exist without Eretz Yisrael. For they have no other land. No. Other. Land. The exact title of a very controversial documentary about a Palestinian area in the West Bank, near the Green Line, called Masafer Yatta; a group of 19 villages South of PA controlled Hebron, the largest Palestinian city and one of the holiest Jewish sites, the burial place of Abraham and Jacob. For context. No other land indeed.
That documentary won the Oscar in its category, last night. I was not surprised. Its two most publicized directors, of the total of four responsible for the film, shared the acceptance speech to a standing ovation. From the Arab, Basel Adra, an inhabitant of Masafer Yatta, the expected mentions of “occupation” and “ethnic cleansing”. Time constraints kept him from mentioning also “apartheid”, which he did before in other venues. No mention of “pay for slay”.
From the Israeli director, Yuval Abraham, a stunning statement: “Why can’t you see that we are intertwined, that my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe?” - Abraham stated. He went on to uphazardly mention the Israeli hostages in one very short line, as if obligated to do so. No mention of Hamas. “Intertwined” is a tragic choice of words.
“Intertwined” as Oded Lifschitz, of Nir Oz, was with the children he carried from Gaza to Israeli hospitals? “Intertwined” as the Israeli children like Ariel and Kfir Bibas, who could have played with the children of Gaza while their parents helped each other? “Intertwined” like the young Israelis at the Nova Festival, so many of them involved in social activities promoting the coexistence with those living in Gaza? That “Intertwined”?
“Intertwined” like the many, many Israelis who opened their doors to Palestinians from Gaza in the kibbutzim by its border, only to see them kill their wives and their children on October 7? “Intertwined” would not be my word of choice, were I an Israeli. Not after that day. Although I recognize the importance and danger that radical settlement policies pose to Israel herself and the sinister intentions of their proponents, like Itamar Ben Gvir, I didn’t see that reference last night.
What I saw was pure propaganda and misinformation under the cover of the suffering of those who, like in Gaza, are unable to break free from their genocidal, suicidal masters, who plunge them into a life of misery from which the best way to escape is a stipend as reward for martyrdom. Many Israelis oppose the settlement policies set in motion in the 1980s but NONE of them are terror apologists. There are ways to criticize the excesses of the Israeli right wing. This isn’t it.
That was the part of Yuval Abraham’s speech that really struck me. Speaking to an audience of millions of people, mostly uneducated about the Middle East, he chose to gaslight them instead of educating them. He compared his life in Israel, where Arabs sit in the Knesset, to the life of his director friend in the Hebron mountains, very few miles away from the only Palestinian city that, against the Arab’s wishes, has a small Jewish community whose existence relies on IDF protection.
Even among the highly educated, hypocritical Oscars audience at the former Kodak Theater I wonder how many realize that. What was the name those segregated Jewish communities were given in a not so distant past? At least now they have an army protecting them. So much for “apartheid”. The amount of willful ignorance, misinformation and gaslighting displayed at the Oscars last night during the Best Documentary feature award was astounding. But expected.
As expected as the replacement of the now ignominious red hand pins by those with a white dove with a genocidal inscription on it, barely legible: “Free Palestine.” Too little room to add “From the Jews”, I guess. But we get the message. The reason this documentary got a standing ovation last night was shame. The everlasting Western shame that once turned a blind eye to Islamic fundamentalism and now holds it in a suicidal embrace.
Yes, the fate of all Palestinians, defined as those who inhabited the region before 1948, is forever connected. Long before then, when there were no partition maps and no British Mandate, European Zionists clearly understood that if there was to be a Jewish State in Eretz Yisrael the future of the Arabs residing in it would come into play. Back then Jews were buying land from them. Arid land. Land they transformed into a paradise. A paradise to which Arabs made no contribution.
A paradise they now claim as theirs, regardless of the sale receipts. A paradise they refuse to build for themselves regardless of all the opportunities they were given to do just that with their portion of it. A paradise they aspire to turn into hell for themselves, provided all Jews are pushed to the sea in the process. That’s a documentary that will never win an Oscar or get a standing ovation from those whose guilt and shame turned blind.
There is no other land. No other land for a people who have no choice but to fight for survival where their ancestors lived, because those who would share it with them, and rightfully so because they have for many years lived there too, refuse to live in peace and build their own paradise, preferring to call for a blood bath instead. The shame that should prevail is the one from not recognizing this, instead of the shame that makes so many ignore it and will eventually destroy us all.
In the end, it would be Adrien Brody, a Jew who has not spoken up since October 7 (that I know of), who would remind us of that true shame: the one from antisemitism. I hope more that like him have been silent start speaking up, before it’s too late for peace. Eretz Yisrael. Ein li eretz aheret.
Remember that. 🇮🇱
* Photo: Israeli paratroopers at the Western Wall. Jerusalem, 1967.
