Catch The Jew!

by Tenenbom, Tuvia

  I check on my iPad and read more about TIPH. “German Federal Minister [Dirk Niebel, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development] Visits Hebron,” TIPH proudly announces. I often see Germans in the Holy Land, not knowing much about them, but at least now I know about one of them.

  I get on a bus, saying my goodbye to this holy city. Allah is the greatest, the muezzin shouts at me as I leave, and Muhammad is His true messenger.

  The non-believing Europeans invest millions to keep the message of Prophet Muhammad alive in this city. I pay the bus driver ten shekels to get out of it.

  ***

  I have pity on the Jews of Hebron, prisoners of their own making and the making of their state. Yet, I know I have only heard one side and it would be only fair if I met their opponents, perhaps even their biggest opponent. Who could that be? A name comes to my head: Gideon Levy. Gideon is a columnist for Haaretz who for years has dedicated his time and writing in defense of the Palestinians and attacking the Right, the Israeli government, the Israeli army, and, his most bitter enemies, the settlers.

  Allah is the greatest and Gideon is my man.

  Gate Twelve

  A Jew finds the “Jewish racist DNA.”

  I HAVE TO GET USED TO TEL AVIV, A CITY THAT HAS GROWN MUCH FASTER THAN I. Whereas in the old days there were quite a number of synagogues, and the Great Synagogue with its five hundred seats was a desired place of the believers, today the Great Synagogue packs in fifteen souls, and the houses of prayers have been replaced by houses of fashion, art, and luxury goods. Tel Aviv was never a really religious city, only today it is even less so. Some streets in Tel Aviv have more clothing, shoe, and various other fashion stores than humans. Not exactly, but almost. Not to mention the cafés, the restaurants, and all the other varieties of food and beverage selling points.

  Gideon is in his newspaper’s office in Tel Aviv, where I have just arrived to meet him.

  His father, he tells me, is from Sudetenland and he spoke German as a child.

  But Gideon doesn’t care about Sudetenland, what he cares about is The Occupation. He wasn’t always like this, but when he started working for this paper “the more I understood that the occupation is brutal, criminal, and the more radical I became.”

  Do you think that the nation of Israel is brutal by nature?

  “No, totally not. Others are the same. But there is one thing that’s different from other nations, which is a DNA in the Israeli mentality, the belief that they are the Chosen People, which is a racist view, and this is something very deep in the DNA of the Israeli, of the Jew, that we are better than anybody, that we deserve everything, the kind of belief that Prime Minister Golda Meir had, that Jews can do anything they want, and this is in addition to the thought that we are the greatest victims of history. These are the very thoughts that make us believe that we have rights that others don’t have, and that therefore we can do anything. Out of these comes the demonization of Palestinians.”

  Could we say that the Israelis and the Nazis are one and the same?

  “No.”

  Why not?

  “You could make a comparison to the Nazis in the thirties. But that’s the most you can do, not more. Here there are no plans to annihilate other nations, no plans to rule over the world, no concentration camps. I prefer comparing Israel with South Africa during Apartheid.”

  Is it ever going to change?

  “Only if Israel pays for it. Only under pressure on the Israelis, economically or, God forbid, by bloodshed.”

  Do you think Jews have always been like this, with this racist DNA?

  “Certainly.”

  In this kind of environment, I ask him, why doesn’t he just pack his suitcases, jump onto a plane, and simply leave this country?

  “I’m an Israeli patriot,” he answers. Israel is very important for him, this is his place and, besides, he asks rhetorically: “What will I do in other places, write about tourism?”

  Europe, as a rule, sides more with the Palestinians, while the United States sides more with the Israelis. What do you think is the reason for this?

  “Europe is much more ideological, complex, intellectual. America is shallow, everything in black and white, and brainwashed.”

  Under the intellectuals’ Rule of Generalization, Gideon should be stripped of his right to speak in public. This is never going to happen, of course, because Gideon Levy is practically the best source of information for all intellectuals with even the slightest interest in Israel.

  Why, do you think, are the Europeans so interested in this land?

  “Very complex. For one thing, you can’t ignore the past. In some European countries, I’m sure, and I’m talking about feelings they have in their sub-subconscious, there is this thinking: ‘if our victims are engaged in horrible acts perhaps it’s not that bad what we have done to them.’ It makes the Europeans feel better and it compensates for their guilty feelings. But it’s also true that Europe is more sensitive than America to human rights violations in general.”

  We keep on talking, and Gideon tells me that he doesn’t speak Arabic. I ask him how can he write about the horrible things Israel is doing to the Palestinians, which he constantly does, if he doesn’t understand the language of his interviewees.

  Gideon replies that his team includes Arabic speakers for those interviewees who don’t speak English or Hebrew. I mention to him that the people here speak in two languages, one amongst themselves and one with foreigners, and that if you don’t know their mother tongue they will sell you tall tales. Even Al-Jazeera is doing this, giving two very different viewpoints: One for the “brothers,” in Arabic, and one for Westerners, in English. But Gideon, who does not understand Arabic at all, claims that this is not the case. And when I ask him if he also reports on Palestinian human rights violations, he replies that what the Palestinians do is none of his business.

  I have no clue how he can report on abuses of one side if he doesn’t even bother about the abuses of the other side. Violence, after all, many a time comes in circles: one shoots and the other shoots back, but if you fail to mention the first bullet and only report about the second, the second shooter turns into a plain murderer by the strokes of your pen, not because he really is.

  What does he think of the settlers in Hebron?

  “They are the worst. No doubt.”

  His issue is not just the settlers.

  “I think,” he says to me, “that the average Palestinian wants peace more than the average Israeli. I have no doubt about this.” Yet, despite his love for the Palestinians he doesn’t really know them. And he admits it: “All my friends are Israelis. I don’t have one Palestinian friend.”

  This is sad. For so many years Gideon has championed the Palestinian cause, but not one Palestinian has befriended him, or he one of them. Obviously, despite what his articles may suggest, he really doesn’t care about the Palestinians, only about the Jews. He’s an Israeli patriot, as he says to me. He wants his Israel, his Jews, to be super-humans and reply to a bullet with a kiss. In short: he wants all the Jews to be Jesus and die on the cross.

  There can be only one reason why he would want them to be a Jesus: Inside of this man’s heart, in its darkest corners, this Gideon is the biggest kind of Jewish racist that has ever existed. Jews must behave like super-humans because they are. And as long as they do not behave as a master Jesus race, he hates them. He is the strangest self-hating Jew you can find.

  We talk more and more, about this and that, and as the interview is drawing to a close I ask him one final question: Would you mind if I join you on your next excursion to Palestine?

  That’s fine with him, he says, and suggests we keep in touch for the details.

  I’m looking forward to next week. Gideon goes out to meet Suffering Arabs once a week, has for years now, and I’ll get to see a born German-speaker, a super racist Jew, communicating with Arabs in Hebrew. If this is not great theater, I don’t know what is.

  *** />
  While still in Tel Aviv, the Left Wing City of Israel, I go to meet Udi Aloni.

  Udi introduces himself to me as a filmmaker and a writer with a Berlinale prize in his pocket, awarded to him by the German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Dirk Niebel. Dirk again, the man busy in Development.

  Udi is very proud of his Berlinale prize, and he does not share with me that the prize he got is not the normal Berlinale prize, but I don’t raise this issue with him.

  Udi is the son of former Member of the Knesset Shulamit Aloni, the matriarch of the Left in Israel, and Udi’s movie, Art/Violence, is soon to appear on multiple screens in Germany, he tells me with pride. Shulamit, who is now in dementia and is cared for by her son, was a forceful leader I still clearly remember. “She was the best,” Udi says of her, and I concur.

  As we sit for coffee in one of Tel Aviv’s myriad cafés, Udi nostalgically recalls another place. “I lived in Jenin for one year, and in Ramallah for two.” A light shines in his eyes, as if he had just mentioned two women of his dreams.

  Udi is a shining example of the new Left of Israel: the extremist Left. This is a Left that I don’t know, a Left as far as one’s left hand can reach. Gideon is not alone. He, Gideon, and the “political psychologist” I met earlier on, are members of a new club. “People in Tel Aviv don’t believe in God, but they believe that God promised them the land,” is how Udi describes the non-radical Left. His Left is different. He is on the forefront of the campaign to boycott Israel and Israeli products, he shares with me with ecstatic pleasure.

  If his boycott campaign succeeds, he, as an Israeli, would suffer greatly. If Israel cannot sell its products overseas and no other nation were to sell any product to her, Israel would go under and people would die of starvation. Is this what he is after?

  In a way, yes.

  “At the end there should be one state here, with one man one vote,” is how he puts it.

  In such a case, and since the Palestinians are likely to be the majority of this one state, the Jewish state would cease to exist, correct?

  “I dream of it!”

  In addition to this dream, he also has nightmares.

  “For me, the thought that one day I’d wake up and there would be no Palestinians around me, is a nightmare.”

  Do you speak Arabic?

  “No.”

  It is mind-boggling to me how people who say they love Palestinians so much and dedicate their lives for preserving Palestinian identity and culture, don’t even entertain the thought of studying this culture. They know Kant, they know Nietzsche, they know Sartre, they know Aristotle, but they know no Quran, no Hadith, and no Arabic.

  I studied the Quran, I studied the Hadith, and I studied Arabic. Udi is an Arab lover. What am I?

  Udi doesn’t strike me as being the self-hating Jew of the Gideon Levy variety. Udi is not a “patriot” Israeli; he doesn’t want a “Jesus” Israel, he wants no Israel. Udi is the normal self-hating person. He loves the Palestinians not for what they are, since he doesn’t really know them, but for what they are not: they are not Jews, they are the Jews’ enemies, and this makes them fantastic people.

  ***

  A few hours later I go to a Georgian restaurant and sit at the table with an Israeli scholar. She is left-wing through and through and she loves Palestinians. So much so that she keeps mentioning to me – in case I didn’t hear it ten times already in less than an hour – that for years she had slept with a Palestinian. They weren’t going out together, not really, but they were having sex. An intellectual leftist sitting with us is very pleased and he gives her this remark: “I’m happy to hear this; now I know you’re okay.” She knows a big zero about the Palestinians’ culture, but she’s been sharing her bed with one. That’s respect, isn’t it?

  Honestly, these Jews make me miss the Palestinians. Maybe I should go visit them, just to clear my head.

  Bethlehem, birthplace of Jesus, would be nice. I haven’t been there in decades. Let’s go!

  Gate Thirteen

  Palestinians discover “Our Lady of Palestine” plus 368,000 Zionist colonialists.

  I DO HAVE ONE PROBLEM. WHO, OR WHAT, AM I GOING TO VISIT IN BETHLEHEM, a city in which I know no one?

  Well, I could meet the Palestinian tourism and antiquities minister, Rula Ma’ayah; she would know people, places, treasures, and many stories.

  I go to her.

  On the door to the ministry, just as in Dr. Ehab’s, it reads: “State of Palestine.”

  “I was born in Jerusalem, lived in Ramallah all my life, and after my marriage I moved to Bethlehem,” she tells me as I sit down in her office. Rula, a very charming lady, is a Christian. I can tell she is because there’s a painting on her wall of “Our Lady of Palestine.” I never knew there was a Lady of Palestine, but I don’t know many other Christian ladies and saints.

  How many Christians live in this city?

  “Total Christian population in Palestine: 1.5 percent.”

  Why so little?

  “The Christians left in the year 2000.”

  Why?

  “I think the reason is because most Christians are middle class and they left because of the occupation.”

  How many souls reside in this city and in the surrounding areas?

  “Some 180,000 people live in the Bethlehem area, out of which 3,500 are Christians.”

  I’m not in the mood to go into the Christian exodus from Palestine again, I went through this with Hanan Ashrawi and I know that no matter what the facts are, the “occupation” will always be blamed. I change the topic.

  What would you feel if Gideon Levy were here? A man who fights for Palestinian rights?

  “I think that he doesn’t love us. He is a leftist who fights against his government, not for us.”

  Is the peace now being negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians a good one?

  “My grandmother lived in Jaffa, she built her house there. I don’t think that it’s fair that you would be forced to leave your country. And even if we have an agreement with Israel, it’s not fair.”

  She is talking about 1948. She is talking about the injustice, as she sees it, of having Jews live anywhere here. I try to get her to be more precise in her statement.

  Are you suggesting that the Jews fly out of here?

  She avoids this mine. “We are negotiating peace now,” she says dryly.

  But would you prefer that the Jews leave?

  “We are negotiating peace.”

  Would you prefer that the Jews living here disappear?

  She wouldn’t directly answer this, other than to repeat her previous statements.

  I move closer to her and I knock on her forehead, like one would knock on a door, while whispering words of wisdom into her ears: I am an angel. You’re asleep in bed. And I come to you, knock on your forehead, and say: Rula, Rula, Rula: What would you like me to do with the Israelis? Tell me your wish and I will exercise it. Whatever you want, I’ll do. Talk to me, speak to your angel. Tell me: Would you like me to send all the Jews back to Europe?

  Rula can’t control herself and is laughing really hard.

  And once she calms down, she says: “You’re not a journalist, you’re a politician.”

  No, I’m an angel! A real angel. Talk to me, Rula, and I’ll grant you your wish!

  She laughs again. She looks at me, her lips about to move, but then no sound comes out.

  What’s the matter, Rula?

  “I’m a minister, I cannot answer this.”

  Ask your angel what you want, and say it in your own words.

  “What I can say is this: there is no fair solution.” She gives me a smile, a knowing smile with eyes smiling as well, and adds: “You know how to interpret this, you know what I think.”

  Yes, I do. She wants all the Jews out, including Gideon and Udi. She might indeed get her wish, and Jaffa would be cleansed of Jews, but nobody can predict whether she, a Christian, would be given a house.r />
  ***

  We are having a good time together, Rula and I, and we laugh a lot. She likes Germans like me, Mr. Tobias, and I like her. Here I settled on Tobias, not Tobi, because I thought it might be sexier for the ladies, and I think it is working out really fine. But time moves fast and I have to leave. I want to see the city. Rula appoints a lady named Sakhar to accompany me on a tour of Bethlehem.

  First we drive to the center of town. There, between the Church of the Nativity and the Omar Mosque, around the Manger Square, is a building called Bethlehem Peace Center. I walk in. I love peace. Inside, as you might imagine, there is “peace information.” For example, this: Israelis, or the way they’re being called here, “Ashkenazi Jews,” are not real Jews. They are rather some kind of creatures who went through a mass conversion to Judaism a few hundred years ago. This piece of information, to make sure no one misses it, is provided in different languages.

  Just in case you missed this important info provided to you free of charge by the State of Palestine, there’s more info about the Israelis outside.

  Yes. Outside, at the center of the square, there is a big “Tourist Guide to the Occupation” section. I picked up a printed copy of the guide in the Peace Center and I now sit down to have a look at it because Sakhar wants me to know everything. The guide states that by the end of WWII, “368,000 Zionist colonists had immigrated to Palestine,” massacred Palestinians, and “planted fast growing pine trees” to cover up their crimes.

  There is even a list of sources provided here, some of the most outstanding of which are either fully Jewish or financed by Jews.

  It’s worthy to note that those Jews, grandchildren of Musulmänner, choose to describe their grandparents who ran away from the ovens of European racism as a bunch of wild beasts.

  I can’t get caught up in this; I must keep on walking.

  On the walls around the square I spot posters praising and celebrating shahids. The shahids, martyrs, are pictured with assault rifles. Usually, shahids are people who got killed after killing “planters of pine trees.”