I believe that in a previous life, I must have been a member of the Kuwaiti Parliament, because I object to anything and everything. I always objected to the Arab regimes, and wrote time and again that all Arab countries are undemocratic, and that there is no rule of law there, nor freedom, accountability, transparency or comprehensive rights for women. I also objected to some Arab peoples and said that some of these governments that I criticize are better than their peoples. In recent weeks, I began a process of self-evaluation, and found myself objecting to myself. As I am a peace seeker in both love and war, and as Palestine is the land that lies between the sea and the river, I agreed with Yasser Arafat and his group regarding the peace process in the nineties, and accepted that the Palestinians be given less than a quarter of Palestine, or 22 percent, for the sake of the hope of starting a new life. However, the Israelis conspired against peace, and voted in the barbaric war criminal Ariel Sharon as the prime minister, and ended up today with another war criminal and a criminal cabal like him which is called, inaccurately, a government. Faced with these criminals, all I can do is ‘rant' as I accuse the Israeli government of being neo-Nazi or fascistic, and the Israeli army to be an immoral occupation army, and also that Israel was entirely established on biblical myths that are not corroborated by factual history. All the above is true; however, it is negative as it pinpoints the problem but without offering any solution. Perhaps my excuse is that there is no possible solution with the Israeli criminal gang. I also remember that I objected before to the failure of Arab governments to come up with solutions; however, I have become equally helpless, as it seems that failure is more contagious than the flu. In truth, I belong to the Three No's generation: No peace, No recognition, and No negotiations. Although I was young when the summit in Khartoum was held, with one foot in college and one foot in the press, I noticed that this slogan focused on what we reject, but I did not hear a counter-slogan that explains what we accept. The Palestine that we accept is the one from the sea to the river, until the Israeli fascists accept a fully independent and unbroken Palestinian state. Only then will I recognize the Israeli state adjacent to it. In the meantime, I have no choice but to reject and object. Since my hobbies include the rebuttal of biblical myths from a historical (and not religious) standpoint, I recently examined the Ten Commandments, and found that they too need modification, and that some also need legalistic interpretations that explain the ambiguous parts. If I were a member of the Kuwaiti Parliament, I would have requested an interrogation session for the Book of Exodus, where these commandments appeared in the twentieth chapter. The First Commandment is: “You Shall Have No Other Gods but Me”. I accept this one as it is, and it is equal in meaning to “There is no God but Allah”. The Second Commandment is as follows: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” I suggest that this one be cancelled because it is implicitly suggested by the First Commandment, as worshipping God alone would proscribe the worshipping of idols. The Third Commandment is “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God”. My objection to it is that belief in God in the First Commandment also means that his name is revered in a manner that transcends vainness” The Fourth Commandment is “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy”. We know that God sent prophets other than the Jewish prophets, and so Christians revere Sundays and Muslims Fridays. The Fifth Commandment is “Honour your father and your mother...” This is common to all religions, and is also observed by irreligious people. After that there are three commandments, which are “You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal”, which are included in the Code of Hammurabi. Hammurabi in fact arrived at these commandments by reason alone, and without the need for revelation. The Ninth Commandment definitely needs to be modified. It says: “You shall not bear false witness against your relative.” However, the English translation uses the word “Neighbour” instead of “Relative” (the Torah is not a single text that is agreed upon). My objection here is that whether the word is relative or neighbour, does the commandment mean that I can bear false witness against strangers? I remember that in Lebanon, we used to have false witnesses for hire on the stairs of the Justice Palace, ready to testify to anything for a known fee. In fact, one of these individuals testified for me, in return for ten pounds in 1958, when I tried to make myself older on the ID card so I can apply for a driving test. What raised my suspicions regarding the Ninth Commandment is that I know from Deuteronomy that the Jew is proscribed from usury that involves other Jews, but is allowed it when it involves gentiles. This is similar to proscribing people to bear false witness against relatives, while the same involving the rest of the people is not clearly prohibited by scripture. The Tenth Commandment is by far the strangest: “You shall not covet your neighbour's wife...” Here, adultery seems to be applicable to the neighbour only and not to all women as the Seventh Commandment suggests. My objection is that my neighbour's wife is not desirable and cannot be coveted anyway. However, the scriptures are clear and I am not prohibited from coveting other women. I feel like I have become like Martha in the New Testament, worried by many things when there is need for only one thing: a peaceful solution. [email protected]
