A Real Fairy Tale: "After the Peace Treaty They All Lived Happily Ever After"

credit

Yesterday on my less political blog, me-ander, I blogged about winning a Liebster Award.   Leora   had awarded me with it, and part of the ceremonial is that the winner must answer questions posed by the blogger who did the awarding.  There was one question I couldn't answer on the spot:

10 What is your favorite fairy tale?

credit

I guess I'm just too realistic, pragmatic to go for fairy tales.  I just can't take them seriously.  Also, even though I read fiction for pleasure, I don't write fiction, only non-fiction, op-eds, recipes, reminisces, health-related material etc.  It's too easy for my mind to poke holes in various myths and ideologies.  Even my Bible studies are text-based; I'm not a fan of midrashim or myths.  When I'm interviewed by the media I'll refuse to answer questions based on "theoretical what-ifs."

In all honesty, I don't see how there can be peace between Israel and the Arabs this generation or even the next one.  To believe there can be is to believe in fairy tales.  A signed peace treaty doesn't erase what's in people's minds and hearts.  The Arabs have been inoculated, brainwashed for generations that they have the power to destroy the Zionists and the State of Israel.  Until that mentality is erased/deleted, there will never be peace.  Israel will not be secure.  Lehavdil, to differentiate (that means that I'm not saying my examples are the same) think of G-d's decision to have the People of Israel wait forty years to enter the Promised Land, because the slave generation needed to be replaced.  No doubt it will take (and has already taken) much more than forty years for the Arabs, and a good chunk of the world to fully accept the Jewish State of Israel.

Former MK Dr. Arieh Eldad MD once gave a very interesting observation of the Israeli political scene.  I heard this on television in a show that featured various public figures being painted by Israeli artists and then interviewed.  Eldad pointed out that the Israeli Right is led by scientists and mathematicians, while the Left is lead those who specialized in the humanities.  Eldad stressed that his ideology is based on facts, while the Left is based on wishful thinking, theories.  That brings me back to my refusal to answer theoretical questions.  Like Dr. Eldad who is a doctor, for me these questions are a matter of life and death, and we must be realistic.

As long as and for at least a full generation after the Arabs stop educating their children to terrorize and destroy Israel (see the PMW-Palestine Media Watch) there is absolutely no way there can be peace.  That's a simple fact.



And if I was to give my favorite fairy tale, yes, I finally thought of one, I'd have to say The Emperor's New Clothes.

Here's the beginning and end of the story.  It's different from your usual fairy tales, because it has a very sad ending.  Read it:

Many years ago there was an Emperor so exceedingly fond of new clothes that he spent all his money on being well dressed. He cared nothing about reviewing his soldiers, going to the theatre, or going for a ride in his carriage, except to show off his new clothes. He had a coat for every hour of the day, and instead of saying, as one might, about any other ruler, "The King's in council," here they always said. "The Emperor's in his dressing room."
In the great city where he lived, life was always gay. Every day many strangers came to town, and among them one day came two swindlers. They let it be known they were weavers, and they said they could weave the most magnificent fabrics imaginable. Not only were their colors and patterns uncommonly fine, but clothes made of this cloth had a wonderful way of becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office, or who was unusually stupid.
"Those would be just the clothes for me," thought the Emperor. "If I wore them I would be able to discover which men in my empire are unfit for their posts. And I could tell the wise men from the fools. Yes, I certainly must get some of the stuff woven for me right away." He paid the two swindlers a large sum of money to start work at once....
...
So off went the Emperor in procession under his splendid canopy. Everyone in the streets and the windows said, "Oh, how fine are the Emperor's new clothes! Don't they fit him to perfection? And see his long train!" Nobody would confess that he couldn't see anything, for that would prove him either unfit for his position, or a fool. No costume the Emperor had worn before was ever such a complete success.
"But he hasn't got anything on," a little child said.
"Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?" said its father. And one person whispered to another what the child had said, "He hasn't anything on. A child says he hasn't anything on."
"But he hasn't got anything on!" the whole town cried out at last.
The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, "This procession has got to go on." So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn't there at all.