Dear friends
the enclosed poetic/ political text is amazing, strong
- (though it gets tons of hysterical reactions).
Gaarder gets the mood right - what many of us feel.
Not anti-semitic but passionate and thoughtful
Enjoy the read. Taste the words, food for thought!
(translation from the Norwegian)
This might inspire your next batch of letters and
emails to your MP, MEP, localnewspaper,national
newspaper, sky, channel 4 BBC...
Best wishes,
in peace
S
http://ovl.indymedia.org/news/2006/08/12038.php
Wednesday, Aug. 09, 2006 at 5:43 PM
Jostein Gaarder, the author of the global literary
phenomenon Sophie's World (printed in 26m copies in 53
languages), launches a scorching attack on Israel in
Aftenposten, Norway's paper of record. Gaarder, a
historian of ideas, describes himself as a friend of
the Jewish people but doubts whether Israel truly is
the same. Suffice it to say that this will not appear
in the New York Times anytime soon.
The form of Gaarder's condemnation is inspired by
Amos, the first Judaic prophet whose message is
preserved in scroll (ca. 750 B.C.). Quoting Wikipedia:
"The central idea of the book of Amos according to
most scholars is that Yahweh puts his people on the
same level as the nations that surround it -- Yahweh
expects the same morality of them all."
God's chosen people
Jostein Gaarder, Aftenposten 05.08.06
From the Norwegian by Sirocco
There is no turning back. It is time to learn a new
lesson: We do no longer recognize the state of Israel.
We could not recognize the South African apartheid
regime, nor did we recognize the Afghan Taliban
regime. Then there were many who did not recognize
Saddam Hussein's Iraq or the Serbs' ethnic cleansing.
We must now get used to the idea: The state of Israel
in its current form is history.
We do not believe in the notion of God's chosen
people. We laugh at this people's fancies and weep
over its misdeeds. To act as God's chosen people is
not only stupid and arrogant, but a crime against
humanity. We call it racism.
Limits to tolerance
There are limits to our patience, and there are limits
to our tolerance. We do not believe in divine promises
as justification for occupation and apartheid. We have
left the Middle Ages behind. We laugh uneasily at
those who still believe that the God of flora, fauna,
and galaxies has selected one people in particular as
his favorite and given it funny stone tablets, burning
bushes, and a license to kill.
We call child murderers 'child murderers' and will
never accept that such have a divine or historic
mandate excusing their outrages. We say but this:
Shame on all apartheid, shame on ethnic cleansing,
shame on every terrorist strike against civilians, be
it carried out by Hamas, Hizballah, or the state of
Israel!
Unscrupulous art of war
We acknowledge and pay heed to Europe's deep
responsibility for the plight of the Jews, for the
disgraceful harassment, the pogroms, and the
Holocaust. It was historically and morally necessary
for Jews to get their own home. However, the state of
Israel, with its unscrupulous art of war and its
disgusting weapons, has massacred its own legitimacy.
It has systematically flaunted International Law,
international conventions, and countless UN
resolutions, and it can no longer expect protection
from same. It has carpet bombed the recognition of the
world. But fear not! The time of trouble shall soon be
over. The state of Israel has seen its Soweto.
We are now at the watershed. There is no turning back.
The state of Israel has raped the recognition of the
world and shall have no peace until it lays down its
arms.
Without defense, without skin
May spirit and word sweep away the apartheid walls of
Israel. The state of Israel does not exist. It is now
without defense, without skin. May the world therefore
have mercy on the civilian population. For it is not
civilian individuals at whom our doomsaying is
directed.
We wish the people of Israel well, nothing but well,
but we reserve the right not to eat Jaffa oranges as
long as they taste foul and are poisonous. It was
endurable to live some years without the blue grapes
of apartheid.
They celebrate their triumphs
We do not believe that Israel mourns forty killed
Lebanese children more than it for over three thousand
years has lamented forty years in the desert. We note
that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs like they
once cheered the scourges of the Lord as "fitting
punishment" for the people of Egypt. (In that tale,
the Lord, God of Israel, appears as an insatiable
sadist.) We query whether most Israelis think that one
Israeli life is worth more than forty Palestinian or
Lebanese lives.
For we have seen pictures of little Israeli girls
writing hateful greetings on the bombs to be dropped
on the civilian population of Lebanon and Palestine.
Little Israeli girls are not cute when they strut with
glee at death and torment across the fronts.
The retribution of blood vengeance
We do not recognize the rhetoric of the state of
Israel. We do not recognize the spiral of retribution
of the blood vengeance with "an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth." We do not recognize the principle
of one or a thousand Arab eyes for one Israeli eye. We
do not recognize collective punishment or
population-wide diets as political weapons. Two
thousand years have passed since a Jewish rabbi
criticized the ancient doctrine of "an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth."
He said: "Do to others as you would have them do to
you." We do not recognize a state founded on
antihumanistic principles and on the ruins of an
archaic national and war religion. Or as Albert
Schweitzer expressed it: "Humanitarianism consists in
never sacrificing a human being to a purpose."
Compassion and forgiveness
We do not recognize the old Kingdom of David as a
model for the 21st century map of the Middle East. The
Jewish rabbi claimed two thousand years ago that the
Kingdom of God is not a martial restoration of the
Kingdom of David, but that the Kingdom of God is
within us and among us. The Kingdom of God is
compassion and forgiveness.
Two thousand years have passed since the Jewish rabbi
disarmed and humanized the old rhetoric of war. Even
in his time, the first Zionist terrorists were
operating.
Israel does not listen
For two thousand years, we have rehearsed the syllabus
of humanism, but Israel does not listen. It was not
the Pharisee that helped the man who lay by the
wayside, having fallen prey to robbers. It was a
Samaritan; today we would say, a Palestinian. For we
are human first of all -- then Christian, Muslim, or
Jewish. Or as the Jewish rabbi said: "And if you greet
your brethren only, what do you do more than others?"
We do not accept the abduction of soldiers. But nor do
we accept the deportation of whole populations or the
abduction of legally elected parliamentarians and
government ministers.
We recognize the state of Israel of 1948, but not the
one of 1967. It is the state of Israel that fails to
recognize, respect, or defer to the internationally
lawful Israeli state of 1948. Israel wants more; more
water and more villages. To obtain this, there are
those who want, with God's assistance, a final
solution to the Palestinian problem. The Palestinians
have so many other countries, certain Israeli
politicians have argued; we have only one.
The USA or the world?
Or as the highest protector of the state of Israel
puts it: "May God continue to bless America." A little
child took note of that. She turned to her mother,
saying: "Why does the President always end his
speeches with 'God bless America'? Why not, 'God bless
the world'?"
Then there was a Norwegian poet who let out this
childlike sigh of the heart: "Why doth Humanity so
slowly progress?" It was he that wrote so beautifully
of the Jew and the Jewess. But he rejected the notion
of God's chosen people. He personally liked to call
himself a Muhammedan.
Calm and mercy
We do not recognize the state of Israel. Not today,
not as of this writing, not in the hour of grief and
wrath. If the entire Israeli nation should fall to its
own devices and parts of the population have to flee
the occupied areas into another diaspora, then we say:
May the surroundings stay calm and show them mercy. It
is forever a crime without mitigation to lay hand on
refugees and stateless people.
Peace and free passage for the evacuating civilian
population no longer protected by a state. Fire not at
the fugitives! Take not aim at them! They are
vulnerable now like snails without shells, vulnerable
like slow caravans of Palestinian and Lebanese
refugees, defenseless like women and children and the
old in Qana, Gaza, Sabra, and Chatilla. Give the
Israeli refugees shelter, give them milk and honey!
Let not one Israeli child be deprived of life. Far too
many children and civilians have already been
murdered.
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