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True, sometimes a slight doubt, a stray, worthless thought steals into our hearts. Ludicrous thoughts about different definitions of courage and cowardice, of certainty and surrender. Sometimes a false demon insinuates in our ears that perhaps the most horrible surrender of all is our slow, vegetative submersion into oblivion and apathy, without any attempt to save ourselves. Sometimes an evil tongue wags seditiously that even with the bad hand of cards we were dealt — despair, Palestinian carnage in our cities, the settlements, that impossible Arafat — it would have been possible, somehow, to play a better game. To take advantage of every opportunity for mitigation and compromise, to be smart and not just right. To use a bold, generous, farsighted political initiative to create a new condition. But against this towers the decisive, unchallengeable claim: We’ve already tried it! We already offered everything and they refused and betrayed us! We will never repeat that fatal mistake. We will always face forward, toward those methods and tactics and operations that have been so successful in the past, that have brought us to where we are. So, Caesar, continue to fight to the last drop of our blood, so long as you continue to draw blood from our enemies as well. As one we vow, like Samson, to die with the Palestinians. They deserve it.

Though sometimes, we confess, we are a bit confused. Forgive us for this. Nevertheless, when we hear what some of your cabinet ministers say, about ever-harsher military responses, about reconquering the Palestinian territories, about deporting 4 million Palestinians, and so on and so forth, a fundamental, simple bewilderment steals into our hearts. Is your program really so cunning and sophisticated that it also has an answer to the new circumstances we will create if we carry out such ideas? Or perhaps, for the purpose of attaining your goals, you have made a strategic decision to move the battlefield not, as military strategy mandates, into enemy territory, but actually into an entirely different plane of reality, into an entirely absurd multidimensional space, into absolute self-annihilation, where neither we nor they will exist. There will be nothing. Nothing will be.

But, of course, all these thoughts are of no consequence. Your loyal citizens have no doubt as to your wisdom and vision. Very soon, clearly, all will realize that there was a profound and hidden reason why we were compelled to live this way for so many years, in contradiction of all logic. It is the reason why we consented, as if we were at the theatre, to suspend our disbelief until, at the denouement, all is understood. And for this same obscure reason we also pledged to subvert the underpinnings of our democracy, of our economy, of our security itself, and of the possibility that we will ever have a tolerable future here.

Either way, when these reasons and motives, currently concealed from us, are finally revealed, we will certainly understand why we were sentenced to live here for decades on the sidetrack of the life that was meant for us, and why we consented to live our own, irreproducible lives in a kind of latent death. Until then, we will continue to support you wholeheartedly, and even as we go to die, in the tens, hundreds, and thousands, we salute you, Caesar.

Reality Check, March 2002

April 2002

Following the most grisly terrorist attack since the Intifada began, on Passover evening at the Park Hotel in Netanya — in a month of daily terrorist attacks that killed over eighty civilians — the Israeli army invaded Ramallah and other cities in the West Bank on March 27, 2002. Despite international condemnation, the operation received widespread support, as a terrorized Israel rallied behind the army and the government. Voices and acts of protest were criticized and many Israelis regarded any opposition to the operation as treason. Long curfews were imposed on the Palestinian population, freedom of movement almost completely denied. Complaints of violations of human rights reached the world and Israel despite the army’s frequent refusal to allow access to journalists and aid workers. Most major Israeli media outlets complied with the restrictions. The Palestinians accused the Israelis of committing a massacre in the city of Jenin, but international reports later confirmed Israel’s denial. Nevertheless, an Amnesty International report, published in November 2002, condemned the Israeli government and army for committing war crimes against civilians.

Seven days ago, as Israel was celebrating Passover, one of the Jewish people’s most meaningful holidays, more than a score of Israelis were murdered by a Palestinian suicide bomber who planted himself in the center of the hall where they were seated around their holiday tables. Survivors relate that the man took a long, slow look around, examining their faces, and then calmly detonated himself.

In response to this, and to three other deadly attacks that happened soon afterward, the Israeli government ordered its army to mobilize 20,000 reservists and to launch a large-scale campaign against the Palestinian Authority, known as Operation Defensive Shield. Today, Israeli tanks are surrounding Yasir Arafat’s compound in Ramallah in an act that lacks any political rationale. Suddenly one bullet, accidental or deliberate, can change the face of the Middle East and catapult all of us into war. Every day, meanwhile, Palestinians are exploding in the streets of Israel, killing dozens.

There is not an Israeli who does not feel that his life is in danger, and the despondency and dread that this insecurity causes are again exposing the odd paradox of Israel’s position. On the one hand, militarily and economically it is one of the strongest countries in the Middle East. Its citizens strongly feel that they share a common fate; they are firmly determined to defend their homeland. On the other hand, Israel is also a surprisingly fragile country, profoundly, almost tragically, unsure of itself, of its own ability to survive, of the possibility of a future for itself in this region. These two characteristics are on prominent display right now — Israel is today a clenched fist, but also a hand whose fingers are spread wide in despair.

Excuse my dramatic exaggeration, but I’m writing this from the front lines. Meaning, I’m sitting in the neighborhood café, in the shopping center near my house, in a suburb of Jerusalem. I’m the only customer in the place, which until a few months ago was bustling around the clock. A few shoppers scurry past, their expressions indicating that they would rather be at home. They look from one side to the other, constantly checking their surroundings. Any of the people nearby could be their murderer. That man over there, for example, who has been standing motionless for several seconds at the top of the escalator leading to the second floor. He’s putting his hand in his pants pocket now, and I notice that around me other pairs of eyes are watching him nervously. Without even realizing that they are doing it, people step back, toward the walls. What am I supposed to do? What does one do when it happens? What should I be thinking about? The man draws a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, that’s all, just a little colored pack, self-destruction of a normal, comprehensible kind. The film that stopped in freeze-frame for a second continues to roll, until the next scary part.

There is, of course, a clear imbalance of power between the two peoples, Israeli and Palestinian. But there is symmetry in their fear of each other and in their ability to send themselves and their neighbors sliding into an abyss.