Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likes the idea of modelling Jewish-Arab co-existence in Judea and Samaria on Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog, two municipalities that divide the town of Baarle on the border between Netherlands and Belgium.
That is a typical European utopia. The border is marked with little crosses on the pavement and metal studs in the road, while many homes are cut by the border. Tourists who pass through restaurants, hotels and shops are not even aware of the different nationalities.
In Baarle, women are able to choose the nationality of their child depending on the location of the room in which they give birth.
It is a perfect world. The message is simple: people and cultures can easily cohexist, borders don’t make the difference. Religion or nationalism have no place in that area. And the crosses in the streets are just reminder of an old, dead past.
But this European Utopia doesn’t fit to the Middle East, where the Arabs hate the Jews. They want to destroy them. They want everything. Up to now, only walls, fences, roadblocks, cameras and sensors make co-existence possible.
Do you recall what happened to the Israeli director and actor Juliano Mer-Khamis? He was killed by Arabs in Jenin, the city chosen by that self-hating Jew to build his own utopia of tolerance. Mer wasn’t spared because he was giving blankets to poor Palestinian Arabs.
In 2003 a suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus near the University of Haifa, killing 17 people. That university has a high proportion from the Muslim and Christian communities among its students and on its faculty. The bombing was intended to destroy the very idea of co-existence.
In 2002 Arab terrorists entered Kibbutz Metzer, killing five Jews. A mother and her two young children were murdered in cold blood despite it being a known fact that their kibbutz had long promoted “peace” with the surrounding Palestinian Arab villages.
Jenin’s area once knew the presence of two Jewish “settlements”, the beautiful towns of Kadim and Ganim. But boulders had to block the entry to Jenin from these Jewish towns. Because otherwise, any Israeli citizen would have been killed in a minute. Ariel Sharon destroyed these towns to ultimately prove that utopia doesn’t fit the Middle East. Since then, Jenin is Judenrein, free of Jews.
No Bibi, the Jews didn’t survive Auschwitz to live in an “enclave”.
European Utopia ???
You must be kidding.
In which country/countries in Europe may a Jew live a Utopian life, unafraid, unmolested, unharassed.
Just one will do.
When my wife and I resided in Jerusalem for our 1973-1974 year of graduate studies at the Hebrew University, the border between the local subsets of the Jewish and Arab civilizations located closest to our apartment on Mevo Yoram was — and possibly still is — a small but heavily-pedestrianized square just inside one of the gates on the west side of the big wall around the Old City. It was the only place in the all of our travels were we saw everyday at least one adult Arab laying on the stone pavement face up waiting toss some coins or paper currency down onto him. Now and then, some sucker of a tourist did just that. The whole sight caused me to curdle in disgust.
Another incident I cannot forget. One day, while driving along a narrow road on the Givat Ram campus where construction was taking place, the driver of a large earth-moving machine scraped part of the side of our 1973 VW Beetle. He was a nice and honest guy, and he made arrangements for auto body repair work we needed. A few days later, he and a couple of his Arab co-workers rode with me on the way over to a repair shop on the Arab east side of Jerusalem, in a neighborhood with a lot of vehicle repair shops, many of which were just open lots with gangs of workmen doing their jobs. We passed one place where a heavy truck was having its real axle greased. The vehicle support stand was nothing more than a pile of bricks. I looked at that, and told them it was a deadly accident waiting to happen, which could easily kill the five or six Arab workmen under the truck. One of the Arabs in the car said “It’s alright. There are lots of Arabs”. And both of them started laughing. On the other hand, the shop did some of the cleanest and most professional auto body repair work I ever have seen.
So what could I say to some idiot who imagines that all cultures are similar enough to have borders like those of a single village right on the boundary of Belgium and Netherland?
On the other hand, had I never been in Israel and especially in Jerusalem for as long as I was, I suppose I might well have been one of those idiots.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Complete nonsense. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew. Israeli Jews need not
take the back seat to anyone! Bibi, forget all this “ecumenism” and
be the leader of your people that you were elected to be! Stop trying to please the US, Eu and the Arab world!