Cheer, O Arabs, for salvation is near. What you could not achieve will now be presented to you by the Israelis on a silver platter. For they have lived among our people for 40 days, 40 years and 60 years and did not leave us, and thus became like us. In the days near the end of last year and the start of the New Year, I could not find a single news story in our Arab papers that is reassuring or that inspires hope in better days. I then moved on to the Israeli press for further self-torture, but found instead some pleasing news: the Israelis seem to have become so much like us that I now believe they will soon compete with us in defeat, failure, and missed opportunities. In Israel, they have religious extremists called Haredim or ultraorthodox Jews. These people are more fanatical than the most extreme of people in our countries, and live according to the delusions of biblical myths and false prophets. While we have known about them for a while, what is new is that they are now more daring, as they try to impose their fanatical beliefs on the rest of the Jewish community, which is originally liberal in the European style. The year ended with demonstrations staged by the Haredim in the settlement of Beit Shemesh, after their attempt to segregate women and men, and to prevent the mixing of the sexes, which drew opposition from the seculars. In the wake of a protest held against the extremists, in which Israeli women politicians like Tzipi Livni – the Kadima leader- participated, the Haredim responded by holding a protest of their own on the last day of the year. The protest was unprecedented in Israel, as the extremists dressed a child to look like he was out of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto, while the adults wore the Star of David and the German word for Jew ‘Jude', which is what the Nazis forced the Jews in Germany to wear. They also dressed their children in striped black and white garments that resemble the uniforms of Jewish children in Nazi concentration camps. Then when the police confronted them, they responded by pelting them with stones and calling them Nazis. The New Year started with this crisis still ongoing. Some of the extremists will have to face courts, such as Shlomo Fuchs. Fuchs had asked the female passenger Doron Matalon to move to the back of the bus to prevent mixing between men and women, but she refused, and he responded by insulting her, calling her a slut and shoving her, and was subsequently accused of sexual harassment. In truth, what happened was reminiscent of the white racism against blacks in America in the sixties, and Rosa Parks' subsequent act of defiance when she refused to give up her seat on the bus. Haredi conscripts demanded their female counterparts to go to a different hall during Hanukkah celebrations, and voiced their objection of female singing in the dining hall, while some threatened to leave the army. The charlatan Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset that it is unacceptable for the Israelis to see a woman being spat on in the street, because of the way she is dressed, while General Rafi Peretz, Chief Rabbi of the army, attacked the exclusion of women. Meanwhile, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein called for the formation of a committee at the Ministry of Justice to punish those who abuse women or assault them, and seek to segregate them and men. Even the barbarian Avigdor Liberman said in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth that the segregation of women and men is an act of “intolerable barbarism”. By contrast, the extremist Haredim stood their ground. Even though they are ten percent of the population, they insist on imposing their beliefs on the rest of the Israelis, beliefs that include the need for women to wear long-sleeved tops and skirts or dresses that drop down below the knees. The dress code also includes a headscarf or head cover, but some of their women also wear wigs over their hair to serve as the required headscarf. The Haredim are originally from Eastern Europe. This means that they are Khazars who emigrated from the Caucasus Mountains (the Sephardim are eastern). While they trace back their beliefs to Moses, I say that they have lied repeatedly until they believed their own lies, since there are no traces whatsoever of their biblical myths in our countries. More importantly, I believe that they are engendering a backwards society at all levels – religious, human and intellectual-, so they will no doubt lead Israel to ruin as it rightly deserves, as well as they do. [email protected]
