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It's war Land of Milk and HorrorBy Rick Horowitz On even-numbered days, he's heartsick. He checks the morning papers, the evening newscasts, for the latest body counts, and in between the morning and the evening, he's on the computer, gathering still more news, because the attacks come so often now and who can wait? He aches for the victims, for their stunned and grieving families. He even aches a little for the desperate, deluded ones who've turned themselves into weapons, who've decided they have no higher calling in their lives than to visit destruction upon so many innocent others. He sees pain in every direction -- on even-numbered days, he hurts for all of them. On odd-numbered days, he's furious. Or perhaps it's the other way around: heartsick on the odd-numbered days, furious on the even; it's hard to remember. Or does it vary by the hour now? By the minute? He wants to cry. He wants to scream. He wants peace, and vengeance. He knows force won't solve this. He worries that nothing else will. He worries that nothing will. Not in the Zone of Perpetual Retribution. Are his thoughts and emotions a total jumble? Absolutely -- and why shouldn't they be? If this were an easy one, somebody would have worked it out decades ago. His thoughts and emotions come spilling out of him, random and forlorn and highly contradictory. He listens to the Palestinian fighters, their faces covered, their guns at the ready, and he feels as if he's passed through the looking glass. We are not terrorists, they insist -- they are terrorists. We kill women and children because they kill our women and children. And the distinction between deliberate targets and accidental victims? Between attack and defense? We are not terrorists, they insist -- they are terrorists. He knows that the occupation has to end, that Israel as an occupying power can't be Israel. He knows, too, that Ariel Sharon would rather walk on hot coals than give back an inch of land. He doesn't trust Sharon as far as he can throw him. He remembers the massacres in Lebanon 20 years ago, and how Sharon let them happen. He has no doubt that, given half a chance, Sharon would do it all again on the West Bank. Is that why reporters and TV crews are being told to clear out? To give Sharon half a chance -- with no witnesses? He trusts Yasir Arafat even less than he trusts Sharon. He remembers the words of peace and the winks at terror. He has no doubt Arafat would rather destroy Israel than co-exist with it; he knows that Sharon knows it, too. He also knows that the only thing worse than Arafat alive and conniving is Arafat dead and martyred. He's not at all sure Sharon sees it that way. He agrees with the Palestinian spokesmen that the Israeli occupation is humiliating, and that Palestinians shouldn't have to spend hours passing through checkpoints to get to their jobs. Does he regard this, as they seem to, as the ultimate in state terrorism, sufficient to justify a murderous response? Or does he remember how millions of people, many of them relatives of these Israelis, once passed through checkpoints on their way to gas chambers and ovens? He hates being reduced to playing "Who Suffered More?" He's simply trying to retain some perspective. He knows that Arafat was once offered most of what he demanded, and he walked away from it. What if somebody put the identical offer in front of Arafat today? He thinks it could still work. He also knows that Arafat would see it as a sign of weakness and demand even more. He wonders whether Sharon and Arafat would agree to make the ultimate sacrifice for peace, and with the understanding that there would be nothing more for anyone to avenge, arrange to have themselves simultaneously detonated. Or would they spend years arguing over the wiring and the timing devices? He would like it very much if, as the last Israeli settler left the occupied territories, the Israeli air force swooped in and turned every building the Israelis had ever built there into a smoldering heap of rubble. Here's your land -- let's see what you can do with it. He knows it's not a particularly charitable thought. Give him a minute, though. He'll probably change his mind. Posted 4/2/02. Get
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Rick Horowitz
