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Pen Ultimate / They have a dream By Michael Handelzalts Tags: Week's End Until the best brains in our security forces manage to round up the ostensible best brains - and bodies - who perpetrated the terrorist act in front of Prof. Zeev Sternhell's house in Jerusalem two weeks ago, it is worthwhile to peruse the flyer found not far from where the bomb was planted, offering "a reward of NIS 1.1 million to anyone who kills a member of Peace Now." That sum made everyone wonder. In his blog in English "From the Hills of Ephraim," Yisrael Medad, who lives in Shiloh and frequently voices his views, analyzes the wording of the flyer under an entry entitled: "This flyer is more than 'fishy.' It stinks." And he asks: "Why announce a reward of 1.1 million shekels? NIS 1.1? Why an odd number? What is that - a typo?" Actually, as mysteries go, this one is easy, and Medad himself figured it out in a later blog. On September 14 Vice Premier Haim Ramon presented an evacuation-compensation proposal to the cabinet. This scheme stipulates that NIS 1.1 million will be given to each family that voluntarily moves from the West Bank into Israel proper, with an added 25 percent for people willing to move to the Negev, and 15 percent to those opting for the Galilee. Not a typo, but a sort of quid pro quo - which, incidentally, gives us a date prior to which the above-mentioned flyer could not have been printed. Advertisement The flyer enumerates 10 possible offenses that apparently justify summary execution. Five are described in the language of messianic religious Zionism, and stipulate the punishment of death for people who cause harm to the settlements in Judea and Samaria, who arm Arabs (which makes it easier for them to kill settlers who are being disarmed), who set terrorists free, or who give out building permits in Arab villages - after destroying the houses and abandoning the settlers of Gush Katif, whose fate is likely to be shared by those in Judea and Samaria. The remaining five points use the rhetoric of the ultra-Orthodox Jews, and propose meting out punishment to Torah haters who wish to erase God's laws, people who physically and sexually abuse "our wives and children," pro-abortionists, the authorities who permit and secure gay parades, and supporters of Christian missionaries whose sole aim is to "convert us." The last paragraph of the flyer mentions, almost in passing, that "people of the left" feel secure because "they know that our political and spiritual leaders will keep on cooperating with them, and betray us again and again." If that is indeed so, the people who wrote this text should address their protest to those leaders. Thou shalt protest, one should add, thou shalt not kill. But the most interesting part of this pamphlet is its first sentence: "The State of Israel, our dream of 2,000 years, has become a nightmare." The dreams of Jews about returning to Zion were not about the "State of Israel" at all. They were, mainly, about the "Land of Israel." The Jewish state was the dream of one Theodore Herzl, who put it in words in his 1902 utopian novel "Altneuland." Its motto, as is widely known, is: "If you will it, it is not a legend." One may argue over the correct translation of this saying from the original German "Wenn Ihr wollt ist es kein Marchen." Is it the conditional "If you will it," or a simple "When you will it"? In any event, it is worthwhile to look at the end of the book. The protagonist, who visited Palestine at the beginning of the century, traveled to far-away islands and came back 20 years later, to found there an ideal state. He now puts a question to a group of people whom he has met along the way: "We see a new and happy form of human society here," he said. "What created it?" "Necessity!" said Littwak the elder. "The reunited people!" said Steineck the architect. "The new means of transportation!" said Kingscourt. Knowledge!" said Dr. Marcus. "Willpower!" said Joe Levy. "The Forces of Nature!" said Professor Steineck. "Mutual Toleration!" said the Reverend Mr. Hopkins. "Self-Confidence!" said Reschid Bey. "Love and Pain!" said David Littwak. But the venerable Rabbi Samuel arose and proclaimed: "God!" "Necessity" is the mother of invention (which makes one wonder who the father is; or was this a case of another immaculate conception?). Nahum Sokolow, while translating the same word of Littwak the elder wrote in Hebrew tzarot, meaning troubles, and we have plenty of those. The German origin of Herzl's text is something like "urgent need," which may be interpreted as "troubles that create a necessity." As to people being "reunited," many ultra-Orthodox Jews still live abroad, as do many secular Jews, who opt to live their lives as citizens of other states all over the globe. There is not much "unity" among the Jews who live in Zion. There are "new means of transportation," of course, but the roads in Israel still leave much to be desired. "Knowledge" is in abundance, but each person has his own view about what is the right kind of knowledge, and "willpower" abounds among the settlers and those who speak and act in their name, but less so among people in the peace camp, I'm afraid. We have harnessed the "Forces of nature," but mainly to threaten each other with "Mutually Assured Destruction," aka MAD. "Mutual toleration" is scarce in these parts, and "self-confidence" shares the fate of "willpower." There is little love, if any, and a lot of pain. And as to God, if he is the one in whose name the authors of the flyer speak and act, he does not evoke or deserve much respect. So much for our happy society. But Herzl's book also has an epilogue, which refers to its motto: "But, if you do not wish it, all this that I have related to you is and will remain a fable ... Dreams are not so different from Deeds as some may think. All the Deeds of men are only Dreams at first. And in the end, their Deeds dissolve into Dreams." The State of Israel has been our reality for the last 60 years, thanks to the visionaries and statesmen who struggled to make life for Jews on this earth safe and livable (while using, too often, religious rhetoric). It has become a nightmare because of the settlers, who acted with the encouragement of our leaders during Israel's 40-plus years of rule in the occupied territories, both from the right - Yitzhak Shamir, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, and from the left - Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak. The prudent person should not maintain silence in such times, and they are indeed evil times. He should join Prof. Sternhell in his struggle to preserve the dream which those who wrote the flyer and seek to act according to it, have turned into a nightmare. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Israel policy Obama camp dismisses Jesse Jackson's remarks on ridding the U.S. of 'Zionist control.' Welcome to AqsaTube The Palestinian militant group Hamas launches its own version of YouTube.

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