A Letter From Israel

A friend forwarded this email to me from a professor in Haifa University, which I'd like to share with you...

Hello,

A student of mine is doing reserve duty right now not far from Jericho. He got a few days off and came to class today with the following story:

At the checkpoint where he serves two 14-year old Palestinian kids were stopped and found to be carrying cans of Coca Cola filled with high explosives. As soon as the explosives were found, the kids were told to strip (in case they had explosives strapped to their bodies). The soldiers then took the kids back to their base, fed them supper (!), and then turned them over to the Shabak (=General Security Service) for interrogation. Everyone knows that after the interrogation the kids, being 14, will simply be sent home. So what kind of "freedom fighter" risks the lives of 14-year olds in this fashion?

Let me add that in this vignette the word "interrogation" means precisely that - whatever you might read in the various news organs that hate Israel, we do not use torture. I have a close relative who serves as a military judge and should know. He assures me that Israel does not torture prisoners, not because we are a light unto the nations (would that were so!) but because it is ineffective and because subtler measures work better.

Let me add further that the student in question is everyone's idea of the "good Israeli": leftwing, pacific in outlook, thoroughly secularist and a fan of Maimonides and Gersonides. It is a crime that he has to spend time chasing down bomb-carrying teenagers.

Be well,

Menachem

PS, as long as I am venting, let me paste in a letter I sent to the entertainment section of "Ha'aretz":

Dear Editor:

There are two sentences in Uri Klein's article, "Absurd Humor in a Thick Fog," (Haaretz Guide, 25 Nov 05, p. 3) which encapsulate everything that is wrong with Ha'aretz. In one sentence he talks about the horrors of the occupation; in the next the talks about "truth." Typically he has things backwards; the word "horrors" should be in scare quotes, not the word "truth." In fact, the second sentence explains the first. Since there is no truth, but only narratives, why not choose to identify with the Palestinian narrative and exaggerate beyond all reason their trauma?

In fact, there a couple of good reasons not to do this. First, it cheapens the actual and undeniable suffering of many Palestinians -- the exaggeration of their misery only makes reasonable people turn against them. Second, it leads to the sort of unedifying intellectual and moral gymnastics which Uri Klein inflicts upon his readers.

Professor Menachem Kellner,
Dept. of Jewish History and Thought,
University of Haifa

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