entire generation, the words "We only carried out orders!" have been imprinted on the Jewish consciousness as the slogan of German war criminals. And the words "without sentiment" only makes it worse.
But the question is: what caused the demonstrators, respectable folk, professors among them, to burst out with such an extreme and objectionable expression?
Every day we hear of the demolition of "illegally built" Palestinian homes.29 At most, there are merely a few words in a newspaper. Words. But when seen with one's own eyes, it is horrifying.
One of the most serious curses in the Arab culture is: "May your house be destroyed." Because a house is not merely a structure of stones and walls. A house is the symbol of man's dignity and of a family's security.
A house is passed on from one generation to the next. The destruction of a house is not just a dry administrative act. It is an act that rocks the very foundations of human life. I suspect that even many liberal Israelis, who do not give the matter much thought, do not perceive the heinousness of this daily act.
It is shocking to watch a bulldozer moving towards a wall and taking the first bite, then the second and the third, like an evil prehistoric monster, until the wall collapses and the roof comes crashing down in a cloud of dust. To hear the wailing of the men and women being dragged out in front of the children, to see their broken belongings scattered on the ground. Are the soldiers' hearts so hardened that they can "do the job," as the phrase goes, "without sentiment"?
When those shocked Israeli demonstrators witnessed the demolition in the refugee camp of Anatah, and heard the soldiers saying that "they were only following orders," the outburst occurred. One of the demonstrators, the erstwhile Chief Rabbi of Strasbourg, was present when the soldiers opened fire and wounded a Palestinian youth in his back (he lost a kidney). Unsurprisingly, the event did not merit a single word in the Israeli press that day or the following day.
The demolition policy currently being implemented by the occupation authorities carries the seed of the next calamity. A child whose house was demolished in front of his terrified eyes becomes a walking time-bomb. The entire Palestinian community which lives with this reality every day knows that the "peace process" is nothing but a fairy tale, and in reality the war rages on throughout the territory.
Virtually every new Palestinian house in Jerusalem is built "without a permit," since virtually no new permits are issued to Palestinians. (The very few Palestinians who do obtain permits are regarded as collaborators.) The Netanyahu-Olmert-Suissa bunch want to reduce