Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Yesterday, I wrote about the shocking story reported in Haaretz that B’Tselem had compiled eyewitness testimony confirming that the IDF had murdered four Palestinian militants execution style in Bethlehem a few weeks ago, which contradicted earlier IDF claims that the victims had resisted arrest or returned fire on their attackers. Several IDF apologists in the comment thread for that post have attempted to raise doubts about the nature of the attack. So I thought I would quote from one of the witnesses, Muhammad Abu ‘Ahour, to give readers a sense of how reliable his account is. I warn you that this is very graphic and very disturbing stuff. If you have half a conscience it will shake your convictions, and if you consider yourself a supporter of Israel as I do, it will make you question whether there is pure evil lurking in the hearts of some Israelis:

…I heard the sound of gunfire outside. I immediately went outside to see what was happening, because my wife and baby were in the car [in front of the one attacked by the IDF]. I stood in front of the shop, about five meters from my car, and saw a red Daihatsu parked behind my car. I saw a man walking three meters from the car. Then I heard someone call out, “’Imad!” The man who called out the name was standing on the street next to an orange minibus with Palestinian plates. I saw the man called ‘Imad turn toward the voice and then I heard the sound of a gunshot. The bullet hit ‘Imad in the leg and he fell to the ground.

Immediately after that, I saw six soldiers, in uniform, with helmets and masks, approach the Daihatsu and open massive gunfire at it. I saw the blue ricochet of the bullets. They fired into the car for a long time. The man who had called out to ‘Imad stood next to the minibus and didn’t fire. He was wearing civilian clothes – a blue shirt and jeans – and looked as though he was in his forties. He had a potbelly and was tall, dark-skinned and bald. He told me in Arabic, “Get back or I’ll shoot you.” I shouted that my wife and baby were in the car and that I wanted to go to them, and that I didn’t care if he shot me, that I preferred to die with my wife and baby than die watching how the car next to mine was being shot at. I spoke to him in Hebrew, and he answered me in fluent Arabic.

I heard ‘Imad cry out. He was lying in the middle of the street. Then I saw the soldiers who had fired at the Daihatsu turn toward him and shoot him in the head. His brain scattered all over the ground, which was a horrible sight. I went over to my car and took out my wife and baby, who were unharmed. The bullets hadn’t hit my car. I took the two of them into the mobile-phone store and then I went outside again. I saw the soldiers take a weapon from the driver’s seat of the Daihatsu.

Then I saw the man in civilian clothes holding a weapon. He went over to the Daihatsu and shot the heads of the three men who were inside. They didn’t move. He shot them from behind, in the head. I didn’t know who they were or why they had been executed.

After that, the man in civilian clothes fired one shot into the head of ‘Imad, whose brain was already scattered on the ground. Then he went back to the minibus, got in with the soldiers, and they drove off.

I went over to the Daihatsu and looked inside. I was shocked when I saw my uncle, ‘Issa Marzuq Zawahreh, who was 36 years old, sitting in the back seat of the car. His head was shattered and resting on the shoulder of his friend, Muhammad Shehadeh, who was next to him. Shehadeh was wanted by the Israeli army. Their heads, which had bullet holes in the back, were leaning forward. It was a terrifying sight, as was the sight of Ahmad al-Balbul, who was sitting next to the driver’s seat. Part of his body was scattered on the seat. The three were killed while sitting in the car. The firing was massive and lasted about two minutes. It came from behind the car. The bullets entered through the back window and went out through the windshield.

There are two other eyewitness accounts on the B’Tselem website which confirm the essential details of this one. So what do you think? Execution or not?

When I read such accounts my feelings about Israel are severely tested. Is this the type of nation that we stand for? One that wreaks vengeance on those who do not threaten it? One that murders its prey rather than be forced to go through the tedium of arresting them and bringing them to trial? One that trains killers not only to kill their enemy but to disfigure them Mafia-style by splattering their brains and body parts in order to further humiliate them and their families? Lord, what is this nation? Is it the Golem created initially to save us Jews only to become an out of control monster who threatens our good name? What hath God and the Jewish people wrought?

I just saw Charlie Wilson’s War tonight and it was one helluva romp. Directed by Mike Nichols and scripted by the inimitable Aaron Sorkin, it will remind you of Primary Colors, a Nichols film about another captivating American politician with prodigious appetites for vice and virtue. Tom Hanks’ performance is stellar, but Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s really is a sleeper and deserves an Oscar nomination. In fact, the film would be much less interesting if not for Hoffman’s gruff, funny, salt of the earth CIA spy. Even Julia Roberts, who I haven’t really enjoyed in a role in many years, does a decent job portraying a wealthy born-again Texas anti-Communist true believer.

One thing that I missed in the film was a sense of the irony of Wilson’s full-throated embrace of the mujahadeen struggle in Afghanistan. Except at the end, there was hardly a glimmer of recognition that all this would bite us in the ass. I also detested the glee with which Wilson and the CIA agent said: “Let’s go kill some Russians!” I guess the film is being true to the characters, but the notion is disgusting.

But one of the most telling lines in the film spoken, if I recall correctly, by Hoffman’s spook is “we always leave.” In other words, we invade countries to get what we want from them, but then we abandon them when we’ve achieved our interests or been defeated in the process. “We always leave,” of course will apply to Iraq, yet another country which will likely turn into the type of shambles Afghanistan became after the mujahadeen came to power, tearing the country apart in the process, and we exited.

Unfortunately, we are a country with a short attention span and easily bored when things don’t go our way.

On a related note, I listened to an excellent On the Media interview with Michael Hodges, author of AK-47: Story of the People’s Gun. He interviewed Mikhail Kalashnikov, who said he often wished he’d invented a lawnmower instead of a gun. The Russian weapons designer called his gun a “golem,” a being created to protect a people, but who runs amok and endangers the very people it was supposed to protect. This was especially telling to me because I wrote an essay here likening the IDF to the golem myth.  And I suppose the mujahadeen were the U.S.’ golem.  They did our bidding to rid Afghanistan of the Russians and then ran amok afterward.  Now they rise up in the form of Al Qaeda against their former creator to overthrow him.

James Besser has a good piece in Jewish Week about Christians United for Israel, the uber-Zionist evangelical group founded by John Hagee, darling of AIPAC’s last national policy conference. What struck me about CUFI is that it threatens to become Israel’s Golem. Rabbi Yehuda Loew created the creature to protect Prague’s Jews from attack by a Christian mob. After routing the anti-Semites and saving the Jews, the Golem eventually runs amok and threatens the safety of the very people he was created to protect. Rabbi Loew then has to destroy the creature by changing the letters on his forehead from emet to met (dead).

Here is what I found especially disturbing about CUFI’s current position regarding Israeli policy:

Pastor John Hagee, the fiery megachurch pastor and CUFI founder…said his group will support Israeli policy “as long as it does not violate biblical principles.”

Those who read this blog will know that I take strong issue with much of the work AIPAC does. But at least that group makes a claim (not always honored in the breach) that its activities adhere generally to Israeli government policy. That at least gives some form of accountability and if AIPAC goes over the top, as it often does, one can point out how its actions diverge from or exceed Israeli policy. The peculiar problem with CUFI is that it is not accountable to the Israeli government or AIPAC which created the monster. Christian Zionists are only accountable to divine guidance defined as they see fit.

This is why it’s one thing to engage in political give and take regarding resolving the Israel Palestine conflict. But once you introduce God into the debate, there is no longer any rational underpinning or pragmatic basis to which one can appeal. CUFI is a monster of AIPAC’s making. It will have to deal with the headache of its very own Golem running amok within the American political scene.

One only has to read today’s headlines in which Ehud Olmert warned his fellow Israelis that they would have to leave “many” settlements as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Do AIPAC and Olmert think CUFI is going to go peacefully as Israel forces these settlers to evacuate? No, of course the Christian Zionist wingnuts are going to make common cause with the radical settlers and try to run amok within the halls of Congress. I can also imagine Christian zealots making common cause with the settlers and joining them on rooftops to battle with Israeli police as settler youth did during the Gaza withdrawal. That could be some heady brew of Christian-Jewish extremism.

Those of you who prefer to view this through the prism of U.S. Mideast policy should think about the mujahadeen forces the CIA created, funded and armed in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet invaders. Remember that these same forces then turned on us and helped nurture the Taliban and the current resistance to our presence there. Not to mention those like Osama bin Laden who have become world-wide jihadists attempting to overthrow the international order. CUFI threatens to become Israel’s very own mujahadeen.

Hat tip to Middle East Bulletin, a great media resource for Israeli-Palestinian peace reporting.