Ha’aretz, Israel
April 23 2009
Yossi Sarid / Sometimes evil is good for the Jews
By Yossi Sarid
Tags: Obama, Netanyahu, Yossi Sarid
"And the Holy One Blessed Be He rescues us from their hands," cited
the president once again at the memorial service.
"From their hands" – but also from our own hands, he rescues us from
ourselves, from our disgraceful behavior. After all, without Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad – a wicked and confused putz – and disgusting types like
him, the international community, including our friends and allies,
would have long since evicted us from the stolen lands on the other
side of the Green Line. The world is tired of the never-ending
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Were it not for the fact that Ahmadinejad opens his big, ugly mouth at
every opportunity, he would not have forced the best-governed nations
to unite around a gluttonous country that refuses to release its prey;
had he not ridiculed the United Nations and its Human Rights
Conference in Geneva, he would not have provided the speeches of
Jerusalem and Birkenau with such a wealth of lofty cliches.
It’s not at all bad to live in a world of evil. Evil purifies and
excuses other evil, and sometimes evil is good for the Jews.
On this very day, April 24, the Armenians are commemorating the 94th
anniversary of their genocide. Although Shimon Peres this week forbade
the "nation that went through the Holocaust" to close their eyes to
evil governments, the Armenians feel that Israel has closed its eyes
to their disaster and blocked its ears to their cries. And only
recently, only when Turkey condemned our evil deeds in Gaza, did one
local general warn that if they didn’t shut up immediately, we would
open up its past.
That is the method: If our sins are scarlet, they are still white as
snow compared to the sins of Turkey; everything in life, and in death,
is relative.
A slightly better world would have demanded that we mend our ways, and
we would have done so. We’ve been lucky, and it’s an evil world that
is coming to us with complaints, which we reject by giving it the
finger, and asking, who gave you the right? First take care of
yourselves, and who do you think you are anyway?
Even the "leading national newspaper" this week probed the question in
a special edition: Is the Israel Defense Forces really the most moral
army in the world. It probed, and immediately discovered that while
the IDF may not be without flaws, compared to other armies it is
entirely true blue and white; the theory of relativity works.
They say of Raful (Rafael Eitan) that at the end of the Yom Kippur War
he hosted a delegation of United States congressmen on a fact-finding
mission. They visited the Golan Heights and looked out over
Quneitra. One guest asked with fear and trepidation whether all this
destruction was absolutely necessary.
Raful let him have it: "And what did you do to the Indians?" he
asked. At that the members of the delegation stopped asking
questions. We have to learn from Raful, that’s exactly how Israel has
to explain itself, without stuttering.
About a month from now the prime minister will go to Washington for a
first meeting in the White House. When Barack Obama only begins to
harass him, Netanyahu has to hit him between the eyes: And what did
you do to the blacks? That will be the knockout line.
That’s my advice. Let him hit Obama where it hurts, by bringing up his
wife Michelle’s mother. Then the president will fall silent, and we
probably won’t hear from him for another two terms at least.