Musings #114
April 19, 2005
10th of Nissan
Starting to Understand
This year I did something rather traumatic and revolutionary; I hired someone to help get my house ready for Pesach. It was a real pleasure and worth every penny, nickel, dime and more. Since my own kids are fully grown, nesting, residing, visiting and trekking elsewhere the burden of Pesach cleaning and house organizing has fallen very heavily on one person, the muse, yes me.
As one of my neighbors mentioned when I told him that I had hired one of the neighbors, “it’s easier and more pleasant than one’s own kids.” “Yes,” I answered; “they don’t argue.” Some of the things the young man did were the same things I had wanted my own to do, but of course no one considered those tasks important. The hired hand, asks no questions, just follows orders, and in this case did a fantastic and efficient job.
In the evening I found myself in front of the TV, and didn’t manage to escape quickly enough. This time the “experts” around the table were complaining that the people in Gush Katif expected too much. They should be grateful that the government’s being so generous. The government officials are laboring so hard to find them alternative accommodations, but the residents of Gush Katif aren’t cooperating. The officials need to know where to set up the refugee camps; they’re willing to be flexible, the Negev, the Galil, near Ashkelon.
The speakers sounded terribly hurt and insulted. They, the hard-working bureaucrats are slaving away trying to create the shantytown of your dreams, and those ingrates, the “settlers of Gush Katif” aren’t cooperating. They’re being offered money, so what’s the problem?
I’ll tell you what’s the problem. The loyal patriots of Gush Katif don’t want government money; they don’t want to move; they don’t want their homes, schools, businesses and lives to be destroyed. It’s not the same as my young neighbor who gratefully took my money and cleaned and schlepped for me. http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=80651
It doesn’t matter how much money is offered and how many dunams are given as compensation. Some people just aren’t for sale.
For years I have been amazed that the government, the Left and the media are so certain that “everyone has his price.” I’m also offended, because according to their plan, someday soon a letter from the Judenrat will be delivered to me, too. To think that some spiteful bureaucrats will G-d forbid have to power to evaluate “compensation,” a price, for home, for my life.
Listening to some of them, you can feel their confusion. They honestly can’t understand why the residents of Gush Katif aren’t tempted by their offers. They try to “sweeten” them with an additional few meters, rental housing, or a chance to live with old friends. For them “money speaks.” They expect the Israelis in Gush Katif to follow their instructions like my neighbor’s son did when I asked him to schlep the branches that had been taken off the succah a half a year ago or the old stove that had been braving snow, rain and sun for eighteen months.
There’s a difference between someone who’s looking for work or to move and someone who isn’t. Not every nineteen year old boy in the neighborhood would have cleaned my house, no matter how much money I’d offered, and I wonder if those same government officials would give up their homes, communities and businesses to move into refugee camps, ok “alternative housing solutions” just because the government decided they should.
As hard as it is to say this, I must. Israel is becoming a totalitarian regime.
Ministers Must Exhibit Loyalty 11:10 Apr 21, '05 / 12 Nisan 5765
(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warning that any minister who does not vote to support government policy has no alternative but to leave the cabinet immediately.
http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=80653
What’s the point of a cabinet that is filled with puppets? People keep telling me that government decisions in a democracy must be obeyed. Maybe that’s true, but the State of Israel is no longer a democracy.
Chag Kasher V’Sameach,
Batya Medad, Shiloh
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