Articles

From this come all our problems, from this comes the irrational nature of the bloody conflict with our neighbors, and here lie the roots of global Judeophobia, which has tormented the Jewish people for more than a thousand years.

Arafat could not sign peace with Barak, just as he could not casually sign his own death sentence. The ra'is was entirely sincere when he said that if peace were concluded, President Clinton would "come to Palestine not as my guest, but to my funeral."

A precise remark. Peace belongs to reason, to a love of life, to creativity. A myth needs only war. Today, the Arab people are a people of myth. That is why we will not see peace with the Arabs. I fear our children will not see it either. It is far easier to create a myth than to destroy one.

Once, only 600 years ago, Arabs were not inclined toward myth-making. The wondrous tales of One Thousand and One Nights were enough for them. They lived the full life of a powerful, tolerant, and, for its time, enlightened state. The Arab Caliphate was renowned for its advanced science and refined art.

Christian Europe destroyed, humiliated, and broke the unified national consciousness of the Arabs, pushing these Semitic peoples aside from the main paths of historical development for centuries.

The humiliation of a nation, its fragmentation and poverty, are the primary causes for the emergence of myth. Myth is the only refuge in the hopelessness of a people's existence. It saves the psyche of a nation the way a drug saves an addict. A myth is cunning, flexible, and always built on the poison of lies.

It does not occur to Arabs to blame Spain, for example — the true agent in the fall of the Caliphate — or the Spaniards who once lived on what were considered "original" Arab lands.

No — the Arab myth, which is believed to contribute to national revival, directs the sharp edge of its hatred toward Israel and the Jews, a people who were once entirely loyal to the Arab empire. A people whose intellect was directed toward creation, strengthening, and developing the Caliphate.

The Spaniards of the 15th century understood this. Having dealt with the Arabs, they turned on the Jews.

Europe broke the backbone of the Arab nation for centuries. Christianity humiliated Islam — but, as usual, Jews are made to answer for the sins of others. Arabs do not need Spain. For the affirmation of their national dignity, they need tiny Israel — and foreign land, on which they lived only as refugees or conquerors.

I felt the harsh force of this myth in Jordan. We stood with our backs to the dim, flickering lights of a poor and desolate Palestinian refugee camp. Before us, beyond the border, Israel shone — truly shone. I cannot find a more modest word.

Behind us was night, darkness, emptiness. Before us — a sea of lights, a kingdom of illumination.

I imagined an Arab from that refugee camp, forced every night to gaze upon this scene. I imagined the despair of the hungry and rejected, the rage, the thirst for revenge. His wounded consciousness is shaped by the myth of the Jew. He will not seek blame in himself or his people for his condition. It is far easier to believe that Israel is responsible for all the suffering of the refugees — and that dignity, freedom, and prosperity can be achieved only by extinguishing the lights on the other side, by putting out the glow of another's well-being.

The refugee does not wish to know that before him stands a state of former refugees like himself — people once humiliated and deprived of rights. He cannot believe that those before him are brothers who might help him, far more than those who pretend to be his allies.

The tragedy of the refugees in our region was created by the Arabs of neighboring countries themselves. They, captured by the same myth, need a striking force aimed at destroying the Jewish state. This is the truth. All other talk of "Palestinian self-determination," "national independence," or "the return of refugees" is merely camouflage for a myth born of hatred and bloodlust.

With his eloquent confession, Arafat sought to suggest to educated Americans that he, a civilized man, is forced to follow the expectations of his "wild" people. A cunning old fox. He is right — he knows what he is saying. For decades, he himself cultivated hatred toward Jews and the Jewish state among the Arabs of the territories. He used every means to create the myth of Jewish guilt for their poverty and lack of rights. Even now, it is by his command that the people of myth have turned to direct aggression against Israel.

And the point is that even the Palestinian people themselves are, in this view, a constructed myth — created by ideologues, not a historically formed nation. It is therefore unsurprising that a people of myth can exist only in lies about themselves and their neighbors — in lies and hatred.

I remember Gaza during a period of relative calm. Russian-speaking journalists were taken there. Boys smiled and begged for coins near our buses. If you gave them a coin, they smiled. If you didn't, one of them would immediately pick up a stone. We were under police protection, and the boy was quickly struck by an officer. It passed.

For a shekel, I could buy a smile. Without it, I risked a stone. The boy was shaped by both myth and poverty.

My son, long before the latest intifada, escorted settlers through Gaza in a military jeep. At a bend in the road, boys would run toward the vehicles from a nearby football field, armed with stones, acting as if trained. Their main lesson in school was hatred — the lesson of myth.

Arafat needs a suffering, humiliated people — children ready not only to throw stones but to die on command. He needs a people shaped by fanaticism. For such leaders, myth is the guarantee of power.

Even Israeli Arabs are affected by it. Despite the freedoms and opportunities they have within Israel, the myth remains powerful.

All peoples living under the rule of myth suffer. And we, Jews, must also recognize that we are not immune to myth ourselves. But our myths tend to turn inward, undermining our own society rather than projecting outward violence.

In this confrontation, we are not fighting only armies or terrorism — we are confronting a deeply rooted myth.

It is difficult to accept who the real enemy is. It is difficult to believe that a neighboring people lives within such a framework of belief. Yet, if that is so, then ordinary peace becomes impossible.

History has seen such moments before. The experience of German fascism is a direct example.

Myth and paganism are intertwined. There is no myth without paganism, and no paganism without myth. Monotheism continues to stand in opposition to this. And in this confrontation — between reality and myth — lies the tragic complexity of our fate, both in exile and in our own state.