When the Zionists took Israel,
Land of their deepest fathers
With just cause, and more than that
It raised the hopes of many, that empty, horrible
Holocaust
Would not be utterly meaningless.
Writers, artists, and musicians
Jew and Gentile, belief and disbelieving
Flocked to this new human banner
In tribute to this triumph of the soul---
'Exodus' it was called---
Imparting unto the new inhabitants, the more so
Because the darkness still remained
Blank checks of righteousness.
Even Wouk, who walked with honesty and selflessness
through two-thousand pages
Rightly. Hoping perhaps, to help the prophesy fulfill
Even he, at the end, made this mistake.
For it is not enough to be right
The heart must also remain true.
"Goyim kill Goyim,
and they come to hang the Jews."*
*Menachim Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, when questioned whether his
troops had allowed Lebanese Christian militia to massacre more than a
hundred men, women and children in a Palestinian refugee camp.
The Palestinians still had no homeland, after two-hundred and forty
years. The ill-conceived and ill-fated PLO had long since
self-destructed. Its thoughtless acts of terrorism could hardly have
done less to loosen Israel's grip on the West Bank of the Jordan river,
or to win favor and sympathy abroad. And the Israelis themselves (or
so their actions would seem to indicate) had never for a single instant
intended to return either Jerusalem to the Moslems, or even to make it
an international city, such as the Vatican, or Palestine to those who
had inhabited it for centuries.
The Arab nations (excepting Egypt and Jordan), which had continually
used the Palestinian question as an excuse for violence and religious
hatred, yet had not loved their orphaned brothers enough to take them
permanently into their own lands---either Earth nations, or the settled
colonies of Space. Ironically, bitterly, the Palestinians had become
the 'wandering Jews' of the post-modern era, living here and there in
scattered clumps, always vowing vengeance, always being promised future
acts of restoration: of home, family, and self-respect.
Finally, in the year 2167, the United Commonwealth had felt a pang of
conscience (or fashion, or something), and decided to do these poor
unfortunates a long overdue, and much deserved kind turn. So a small,
tillable planet was given to them, along with transports, to bring
together in this new life all those who wished to go. The Egyptians
had then contributed materials for building, the Japanese had added
factories and technicians, and the British and Australians, teachers
and universities to bring the less educated up to date. The Free
French had provided defense systems, and the French Elite a modest
fleet (later to be supplemented by the more sophisticated weapons of
Soviet Space, never far in the background at the birth of a nation they
hoped to seduce). All in all, the contributing powers had looked upon
the venture as a success, and the Salvation Army humor of the
Commonwealth was much restored.
But now, forty years later, the numbers of the Palestinians had grown
great enough, and their force of arms respectable enough, to raise the
hopes of the embittered and illusioned one last time. Bolstered yet
again by the warlike teachings of the prophet Mohammad, which state
that to die in a Holy War is to ensure the soul's salvation, the
stubborn and simple among them had seized power from the more educated
and enlightened moderates, and prepared, in secret, a last attempt at
true retribution.
To accomplish their aims, the radicals (supported by most within the
country, strongly challenged by none), would have to violate all the
sanctions of the civilized world, including the Green Earth Pact, and
the unspoken, though severely understood, international policy of
non-violence upon the Earth itself. But what of that? GOD was with
them.
For they did not intend merely to hurt the Israelis symbolically, or to
steal from them some distant and less guarded settlement, but to return
in triumph to their true home, and the land of their most ancient
fathers. Given to them by Allah himself.....
Palestine!
The Green Earth Pact, as it was called, had been enacted (and
unanimously approved) by the United Nations, to insure the peace and
neutrality of the beloved home planet of all humanity, which had so
narrowly escaped war's destruction and environmental catastrophe during
the Nuclear Age. Among other clauses designed to protect the fragile
environment, so long and senselessly abused, it specified that no more
than one-hundred military vessels of any given nation, and these of
limited size and destructive capability, were to enter the parochial
Solar System at any one time, and that no more than half that number
could engage an Earth orbit or rest upon the Moon. And except in
sudden crisis of defense, absolutely none were allowed to pierce the
upper atmosphere.
And so one hundred Palestinian vessels were sent, mostly fighters,
manned not by the best trained pilots and soldiers, but by the most
fervent believers, and those with the deepest grudge. Under the
pretext of diplomatic and training purposes they came, believing
against all Satan's whisperings that if once, by their own actions they
could retake that sacred land, some miracle of God would allow them to
keep it.
Half remained at the legal distance, the other half locking in around
the Earth. After visiting with the Soviets, the Syrians, and the
Saudis, betraying their true purpose to none, the fifty vessels broke
suddenly from orbit and rushed down upon the tiny speck of land known
as modern Israel ---before that Palestine, before that Judea, and so
on back into the dawn of history, when it had been little more than a
forbidding desert, endlessly fought over by tribes and Empires until it
was hard to say (and still harder to care) who had been there first, or
why.
In one sense at least, the modern Israelis had not changed from the
turbulent and close-knit times of the 1950's and 60's. When it came to
defense, they took nothing for granted. At the instant the first
Palestinian fighters began to dive, they had released their own fifty,
more sophisticated craft, and in conjunction with the best ground
batteries on the planet Earth, cut short the brave but foolish attack.
No prisoners were taken.
For the next several days, in Western publications circulated
throughout the settled galaxy, the headlines, columns and editorial
pages all expressed the same outrage, decrying the viciousness and
small-mindedness of the Palestinian attack; and the Israelis were freed
once more to expound upon the necessities of their hard-nosed,
aggressive, and completely intransigent foreign policies. They also
took it upon themselves to retaliate, destroying the remaining forces
and outer defenses of the exiled Arab planet, 'inadvertently' killing
thousands of civilians in the process.
The moral? Pointless insanity on all sides, that had gone on for three
centuries. BECAUSE IT HAD GONE UNCHALLENGED.
* * *
"The next time you start to get angry, count to ten."