Part, the Last
When the Zionists took Israel,
Land of their deepest fathers
With just cause, and more than that
It raised the hopes of many, that empty, horrible
Holocaust
Would not be utterly meaningless.
Writers, artists, and musicians
Jew and Gentile, belief and disbelieving
Flocked to this new human banner
In tribute to this triumph of the soul—-
'Exodus' it was called—-
Imparting unto the new inhabitants, the more so
Because the darkness still remained
Blank checks of righteousness.
Even Wouk, who walked with honesty and selflessness
through two-thousand pages
Rightly. Hoping perhaps, to help the prophesy fulfill
Even he, at the end, made this mistake.
For it is not enough to be right
The heart must also remain true.
"Goyim kill Goyim,
and they come to hang the Jews."*
*Menachim Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, when questioned whether his troops had allowed Lebanese Christian militia to massacre more than a hundred men, women and children in a Palestinian refugee camp.
The Palestinians still had no homeland, after two-hundred and forty years. The ill-conceived and ill-fated PLO had long since self-destructed. Its thoughtless acts of terrorism could hardly have done less to loosen Israel's grip on the West Bank of the Jordan river, or to win favor and sympathy abroad. And the Israelis themselves (or so their actions would seem to indicate) had never for a single instant intended to return either Jerusalem to the Moslems, or even to make it an international city, such as the Vatican, or Palestine to those who had inhabited it for centuries.
The Arab nations (excepting Egypt and Jordan), which had continually used the Palestinian question as an excuse for violence and religious hatred, yet had not loved their orphaned brothers enough to take them permanently into their own lands—-either Earth nations, or the settled colonies of Space. Ironically, bitterly, the Palestinians had become the 'wandering Jews' of the post-modern era, living here and there in scattered clumps, always vowing vengeance, always being promised future acts of restoration: of home, family, and self-respect.
Finally, in the year 2167, the United Commonwealth had felt a pang of conscience (or fashion, or something), and decided to do these poor unfortunates a long overdue, and much deserved kind turn. So a small, tillable planet was given to them, along with transports, to bring together in this new life all those who wished to go. The Egyptians had then contributed materials for building, the Japanese had added factories and technicians, and the British and Australians, teachers and universities to bring the less educated up to date. The Free French had provided defense systems, and the French Elite a modest fleet (later to be supplemented by the more sophisticated weapons of Soviet Space, never far in the background at the birth of a nation they hoped to seduce). All in all, the contributing powers had looked upon the venture as a success, and the Salvation Army humor of the Commonwealth was much restored.
But now, forty years later, the numbers of the Palestinians had grown great enough, and their force of arms respectable enough, to raise the hopes of the embittered and illusioned one last time. Bolstered yet again by the warlike teachings of the prophet Mohammad, which state that to die in a Holy War is to ensure the soul's salvation, the stubborn and simple among them had seized power from the more educated and enlightened moderates, and prepared, in secret, a last attempt at true retribution.
To accomplish their aims, the radicals (supported by most within the country, strongly challenged by none), would have to violate all the sanctions of the civilized world, including the Green Earth Pact, and the unspoken, though severely understood, international policy of non-violence upon the Earth itself. But what of that? GOD was with them.
For they did not intend merely to hurt the Israelis symbolically, or to steal from them some distant and less guarded settlement, but to return in triumph to their true home, and the land of their most ancient fathers. Given to them by Allah himself…..
Palestine!
The Green Earth Pact, as it was called, had been enacted (and unanimously approved) by the United Nations, to insure the peace and neutrality of the beloved home planet of all humanity, which had so narrowly escaped war's destruction and environmental catastrophe during the Nuclear Age. Among other clauses designed to protect the fragile environment, so long and senselessly abused, it specified that no more than one-hundred military vessels of any given nation, and these of limited size and destructive capability, were to enter the parochial Solar System at any one time, and that no more than half that number could engage an Earth orbit or rest upon the Moon. And except in sudden crisis of defense, absolutely none were allowed to pierce the upper atmosphere.
And so one hundred Palestinian vessels were sent, mostly fighters, manned not by the best trained pilots and soldiers, but by the most fervent believers, and those with the deepest grudge. Under the pretext of diplomatic and training purposes they came, believing against all Satan's whisperings that if once, by their own actions they could retake that sacred land, some miracle of God would allow them to keep it.
Half remained at the legal distance, the other half locking in around the Earth. After visiting with the Soviets, the Syrians, and the Saudis, betraying their true purpose to none, the fifty vessels broke suddenly from orbit and rushed down upon the tiny speck of land known as modern Israel —-before that Palestine, before that Judea, and so on back into the dawn of history, when it had been little more than a forbidding desert, endlessly fought over by tribes and Empires until it was hard to say (and still harder to care) who had been there first, or why.
In one sense at least, the modern Israelis had not changed from the turbulent and close-knit times of the 1950's and 60's. When it came to defense, they took nothing for granted. At the instant the first Palestinian fighters began to dive, they had released their own fifty, more sophisticated craft, and in conjunction with the best ground batteries on the planet Earth, cut short the brave but foolish attack. No prisoners were taken.
For the next several days, in Western publications circulated throughout the settled galaxy, the headlines, columns and editorial pages all expressed the same outrage, decrying the viciousness and small-mindedness of the Palestinian attack; and the Israelis were freed once more to expound upon the necessities of their hard-nosed, aggressive, and completely intransigent foreign policies. They also took it upon themselves to retaliate, destroying the remaining forces and outer defenses of the exiled Arab planet, 'inadvertently' killing thousands of civilians in the process.
The moral? Pointless insanity on all sides, that had gone on for three centuries. BECAUSE IT HAD GONE UNCHALLENGED.
* * *
"The next time you start to get angry, count to ten."