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Date - December 3, 2001
Israel Replaces Its National Anthem
H.N. Bialik, "THE CITY OF SLAUGHTER" in Complete Poetic Works of Hayyim
Nahman Bialik, vol.
1, Israel Efros, ed. (New York: Histadruth Ivrith, 1948), 129-43.
ARISE and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind thy way;
There with shine own hand touch, and with the eyes of
shine head,
Behold on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay,
The spattered blood and dried brains of the dead.
Proceed thence to the ruins, the split walls reach,
Where wider grows the hollow, and greater grows the
breach;
Pass over the shattered hearth, attain the broken wall
Whose burnt and barren brick, whose charred stones reveal
The open mouths of such wounds, that no mending
Shall ever mend, nor healing ever heal.
There will thy feet in feathers sink, and stumble
On wreckage doubly wrecked, scroll heaped on manuscript,
Fragments again fragmented-
Pause not upon this havoc; go thy way.
The perfumes will be wafted from the acacia bud
And half its blossoms will be feathers,
Whose smell is the smell of blood!
And, spiting thee, strange incense they will bring-
Banish thy loathing-all the beauty of the spring,
The thousand golden arrows of the sun,
Will flash upon thy malison;
The sevenfold rays of broken glass
Over thy sorrow joyously will pass,
For God called up the slaughter and the spring together,-
The slayer slew, the blossom burst, and it was sunny
weather!
Then wilt thou flee to a yard, observe its mound.
Upon the mound lie two, and both are headless-
A Jew and his hound.
The self-same axe struck both, and both were flung
Unto the self-same heap where swine seek dung;
Tomorrow the rain will wash their mingled blood
Into the runners, and it will be lost
In rubbish heap, in stagnant pool, in mud.
Its cry will not be heard.
It will descend into the deep, or water the cockle-burr.
And all things will be as they ever were.
Unto the attic mount, upon thy feet and hands;
Behold the shadow of death among the shadows stands.
There in the dismal corner, there in the shadowy nook,
Multitudinous eyes will look
Upon thee from the sombre silence-
The spirits of the martyrs are these souls,
Gathered together, at long last,
Beneath these rafters and in these ignoble holes.
The hatchet found them here, and hither do they come
To seal with a last look, as with their final breath,
The agony of their lives, the terror of their death.
Tumbling and stumbling wraiths, they come, and cower there
Their silence whimpers, and it is their eyes which cry
Wherefore, O Lord, and why?
It is a silence only God can bear.
Lift then shine eyes to the roof; there’s nothing there,
Save silences that hang from rafters
And brood upon the air:
Question the spider in his lair!
His eyes beheld these things; and with his web he can
A tale unfold horrific to the ear of man:
A tale of cloven belly, feather-filled;
Of nostrils nailed, of skull-bones bashed and spilled;
Of murdered men who from the beams were hung,
And of a babe beside its mother flung,
Its mother speared, the poor chick finding rest
Upon its mother’s cold and milkless breast;
Of how a dagger halved an infant’s word,
Its ma was heard, its mama never heard.
O, even now its eyes from me demand accounting,
For these the tales the spider is recounting,
Tales that do puncture the brain, such tales that sever
Thy body, spirit, soul, from life, forever!
Then wilt thou bid thy spirit-Hold, enough!
Stifle the wrath that mounts within thy throat,
Bury these things accursed,
Within the depth of thy heart, before thy heart will burst!
Then wilt thou leave that place, and go thy way- And lo- The earth is as it
was, the sun still
shines: It is a day like any other day.
Descend then, to the cellars of the town,
There where the virginal daughters of thy folk were fouled,
Where seven heathen flung a woman down,
The daughter in the presence of her mother,
The mother in the presence of her daughter,
Before slaughter, during slaughter, and after slaughter!
Touch with thy hand the cushion stained; touch
The pillow incarnadined:
This is the place the wild ones of the wood, the beasts of
the field
With bloody axes in their paws compelled thy daughters
yield:
Beasted and swiped!
Note also do not fail to note,
In that dark corner, and behind that cask
Crouched husbands, bridegrooms, brothers, peering from
the cracks,
Watching the sacred bodies struggling underneath
The bestial breath,
Stifled in filth, and swallowing their blood!
Watching from the darkness and its mesh
The lecherous rabble portioning for booty
Their kindred and their flesh!
Crushed in their shame, they saw it all; They did not stir nor move; They
did not pluck their eyes
out; they Beat not their brains against the wall! Perhaps, perhaps, each
watcher had it in his heart
to pray: A miracle, O Lord,-and spare my skin this day! Those who survived
this foulness, who
from their blood awoke, Beheld their life polluted, the light of their world
gone out- How did
their menfolk bear it, how did they bear this yoke? They crawled forth from
their holes, they fled
to the house of the Lord, They offered thanks to Him, the sweet benedictory
word. The Cohanim
sallied forth, to the Rabbi’s house they flitted: Tell me, O Rabbi, tell, is
my own wife permitted?
The matter ends; and nothing more. And all is as it was before.
Come, now, and I will bring thee to their lairs
The privies, jakes and pigpens where the heirs
Of Hasmoneans lay, with trembling knees,
Concealed and cowering,-the sons of the Maccabees!
The seed of saints, the scions of the lions!
Who, crammed by scores in all the sanctuaries of their shame,
So sanctified My name!
It was the flight of mice they fled,
The scurrying of roaches was their flight;
They died like dogs, and they were dead!
And on the next morn, after the terrible night
The son who was not murdered found The spurned cadaver of his father on the
ground. Now
wherefore cost thou weep, O son of man?
Descend into the valley; verdant, there
A garden flourishes, and in the garden
A barn, a shed,-it was their abbatoir;
There, like a host of vampires, puffed and bloated,
Besotted with blood, swilled from the scattered dead,
The tumbril wheels lie spread-
Their open spokes, like fingers stretched for murder,
Like vampire-mouths their hubs still clotted red.
Enter not now, but when the sun descends
Wrapt in bleeding clouds and girt with flame,
Then open the gate and stealthily do set
Thy foot within the ambient of horror:
Terror floating near the rafters, terror
Against the walls in darkness hiding,
Terror through the silence sliding.
Didst thou not hear beneath the heap of wheels
A stirring of crushed limbs? Broken and racked
Their bodies move a hub, a spoke
Of the circular yoke;
In death-throes they contort;
In blood disport;
And their last groaning, inarticulate
Rises above thy head,
And it would seem some speechless sorrow,
Sorrow infinite,
Is prisoned in this shed.
It is, it is the Spirit of Anguish!
Much-suffering and tribulation-tried
Which in this house of bondage binds itself.
It will not ever from its pain be pried.
Brief-weary and forespent, a dark Shekinah
Runs to each nook and cannot find its rest;
Wishes to weep, but weeping does not come;
Would roar; is dumb.
Its head beneath its wing, its wing outspread
Over the shadows of the martyr’d dead,
Its tears in dimness and in silence shed.
And thou, too, son of man, close now the gate behind thee;
Be closed in darkness now, now shine that charnel space;
So tarrying there thou wilt be one with pain and anguish
And wilt fill up with sorrow shine heart for all its days.
Then on the day of shine own desolation
A refuge will it seem,-
Lying in thee like a curse, a demon’s ambush,
The haunting of an evil dream,
O, carrying it in thy heart, across the world’s expanse
Thou wouldst proclaim it, speak it out,-
But thy lips shall not find its utterance.
Beyond the suburbs go, and reach the burial ground. Let no man see thy
going; attain that place
alone, A place of sainted graves and martyr-stone.
Stand on the fresh-turned soil.
Such silence will take hold of thee, thy heart will fail
With pain and shame, yet I
Will let no tear fall from shine eye.
Though thou wilt long to bellow like the driven ox
That bellows, and before the altar balks,
I will make hard thy heart, yea, I
Will not permit a sigh.
See, see, the slaughtered calves, so smitten and so laid;
Is there a price for their death? How shall that price be
paid?
Forgive, ye shamed of the earth, yours is a pauper-Lord!
Poor was He during your life, and poorer still of late.
When to my door you come to ask for your reward,
I’ll open wide: See, I am fallen from My high estate.
I grieve for you, my children. My heart is sad for you.
Your dead were vainly dead; and neither I nor you
Know why you died or wherefore, for whom, nor by what
laws;
Your deaths are without reason; your lives are without cause.
What says the Shekinah? In the clouds it hides
In shame, in agony alone abides;
I, too, at night, will venture on the tombs,
Regard the dead and weigh their secret shame,
But never shed a tear, I swear it in My name.
For great is the anguish, great the shame on the brow;
But which of these is greater, son of man, say thou-
Or liefer keep thy silence, bear witness in My name
To the hour of My sorrow, the moment of My shame. And when thou cost return
Bring thou the
blot of My disgrace upon thy people’s head, And from My suffering do not
part, But set it like a
stone within their heart!
Turn, then, to leave the cemetery ground,
And for a moment thy swift eye will pass
Upon the verdant carpet of the grass-
A lovely thing! Fragrant and moist, as it is always at the
coming of the Spring!
The stubble of death, the growth of tombstones!
Take thou a fistful fling it on the plain
Saying,
"The people is plucked grass; can plucked grass grow again?"
Turn, then, thy gaze from the dead, and I will lead
Thee from the graveyard to thy living brothers,
And thou wilt come, with those of shine own breed,
Into the synagogue, and on a day of fasting,
To hear the cry of their agony,
Their weeping everlasting.
Thy skin will grow cold, the hair on thy skin stand up,
And thou wilt be by fear and trembling tossed;
Thus groans a people which is lost.
Look in their hearts-behold a dreary waste,
Where even vengeance can revive no growth,
And yet upon their lips no mighty malediction
Rises, no blasphemous oath.
Are they not real, their bruises? Why is their prayer false? Why, in the day
of their trials Approach
me with pious ruses, Afflict me with denials? Regard them now, in these
their woes: Ululating,
lachrymose, Crying from their throes, We have sinned! and Sinned have we!-
Self-flagellative
with confession’s whips. Their hearts, however, do not believe their lips.
Is it, then, possible for
shattered limbs to sin? Wherefore their cries imploring, their supplicating
din? Speak to them, bid
them rage! Let them against me raise the outraged hand,- Let them demand!
Demand the
retribution for the shamed Of all the centuries and every age! Let fists be
flung like stone Against
the heavens and the heavenly Throne!
And thou, too, son of man, be part of these:
Believe the pangs of their heart, believe not their litanies:
And when the cantor lifts his voice to cry:
Remember the martyrs, Lord,
Remember the cloven infants, Lord,
Consider the sucklings, Lord,
And when the pillars of the synagogue shall crack
At this his piteous word And terror shall take thee, fling thee in its deep,
Then I will harden My
heart; I will not let thee weep! Should then a cry escape from thee, I’ll
stifle it within thy throat.
Let them assoil their tragedy,- Not thou,-let it remain unmourned For
distant ages, times remote,
But thy tear, son of man, remain unshed! Build thou about it, with thy
deadly hate Thy fury and
thy rage, unuttered, A wall of copper, the bronze triple plate! So in thy
heart it shall remain
confined A serpent in its nest-O terrible tear!- Until by thirst and hunger
it shall find A breaking
of its bond. Then shall it rear Its venomous head, its poisoned fangs, and
wait To strike the people
of thy love and hate!
Leave now this place at twilight to return
And to behold these creatures who arose
In terror at dawn, at dusk now, drowsing, worn
With weeping, broken in spirit, in darkness shut.
Their lips still move with words unspoken.
Their hearts are broken.
No lustre in the eye, no hoping in the mind,
They grope to seek support they shall not find:
Thus when the oil is gone,
The wick still sends its smoke; Thus does the beast of burden, Broken and
old, still bear his yoke.
Would that misfortune had left them some small solace Sustaining the soul,
consoling their gray
hairs ! Behold the fast is ended; the final prayers are said. But why do
they tarry now, these
mournful congregations? Shall it be also read, The Book of Lamentations? It
is a preacher mounts
the pulpit now. He opens his mouth, he stutters, stammers. Hark The empty
verses from his
speaking flow. And not a single mighty word is heard To kindle in the hearts
a single spark. The
old attend his doctrine, and they nod. The young ones hearken to his speech;
they yawn. The
mark of death is on their brows; their God Has utterly forsaken every one.
And thou, too, pity them not, nor touch their wound;
Within their cup no further measure pour.
Wherever thou wilt touch, a bruise is found.
Their flesh is wholly sore.
For since they have met pain with resignation
And have made peace with shame,
What shall avail thy consolation?
They are too wretched to evoke thy scorn.
They are too lost thy pity to evoke,
So let them go, then, men to sorrow born,
Mournful and slinking, crushed beneath their yoke.
Go to their homes, and to their hearth depart-
Rot in the bones, corruption in the heart.
And when thou shalt arise upon the morrow
And go upon the highway,
Thou shalt then meet these men destroyed by sorrow,
Sighing and groaning, at the doors of the wealthy
Proclaiming their sores, like so much peddler’s wares,
The one his battered head, t’other limbs unhealthy,
One shows a wounded arm, and one a fracture bares.
And all have eyes that are the eyes of slaves,
Slaves flogged before their masters;
And each one begs, and each one craves:
Reward me, Master, for that my skull is broken
Reward me for my father who was martyred!
The rich ones, all compassion, for the pleas so bartered
Extend them staff and bandage, say good riddance, and
The tale is told:
The paupers are consoled.
Avaunt ye, beggars, to the charnel-house!
The bones of your fathers disinter!
Cram them within your knapsacks, bear
Them on your shoulders, and go forth
To do your business with these precious wares
At all the country fairs!
Stop on the highway, near some populous city,
And spread on your filthy rags
Those martyred bones that issue from your bags, And sing, with raucous
voice, your pauper’s ditty!
So will you conjure up the pity of the nations, And so their sympathy
implore. For you are now as
you have been of yore And as you stretched your hand So will you stretch it,
And as you have
been wretched So are you wretched!
What is thy business here, O son of man?
Rise, to the desert fee!
The cup of affl iction thither bear with thee!
Talc thou thy soul, rend it in many a shred!
With impotent rage, thy heart deform!
Thy tear upon the barren boulders shed!
And send thy bitter cry into the storm!
Now I mention Abu Dis, because it turns out the suicide terrorists who
blew up Jerusalem children Saturday night were from Abu Dis. (And as usual,
PLO terrorists make a POINT of targeting children, like the German Nazis
before them.)
And as residents of Abu Dis, their families no doubt carry Israeli
citizenship and so will now benefit from the quaint Israeli custom of paying
survivor benefits from its social security administration to the families of
suicide bombers who murder Jewish children. In any case, no one expects the
Sharon government of Oslo Lite to take serious action against such families.
International Commentary
Arabs Have Never Accepted Israel
By Daniel Pipes. Mr. Pipes, director of the Philadelphia-based Middle
East Forum, can be reached via www.DanielPipes.org1.
The sheik’s gentle homily came to mind this weekend, when
Palestinian suicide bombers launched nearly simultaneous attacks on
Israeli civilians in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Gaza, killing 26 and
wounding nearly 200. If a reminder were needed that the war on
terrorism goes beyond Sept. 11 and the campaign in Afghanistan, the
Palestinians provided a powerful mnemonic. Even as U.S. and British
forces respond to the World Trade Center atrocity by closing in on
Kandahar, the last city under militant Islamic rule in Afghanistan,
Israeli forces began preparing a response to the Jerusalem atrocity
with a "frontal attack" against the Palestinian Authority.
The American and Israeli situations seem very different to some, but
Sheik Madi’s remarks show they are not. In both cases, the forces of
militant Islam are targeting a Western country with the intention of
destroying it. Osama bin Laden years ago declared a jihad against all
Christians and Jews while his friend Mullah Omar, the Taliban
dictator, provided more specifics in mid-November: "The current
situation in Afghanistan is related to a bigger cause -- that is the
destruction of America. If God’s help is with us, this will happen
within a short period of time -- keep in mind this prediction. The
real matter is the extinction of America, and God willing, it will fall
to the ground."
’Cancerous Tumor’
Likewise, with an almost numbing routineness, militant Islamic
leaders call for the destruction of Israel. The most powerful of them
all, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called sometime
ago for "this cancerous tumor of a state [to] be removed from the
region."
There are differences, to be sure. The battle against the United States
is newer, far less advanced, and less supported by nonmilitant
Islamic elements. Ironically, however, the U.S. government has
declared a "war on terrorism," while its Israeli counterpart is still
(with U.S. encouragement) trying to hammer out a deal with its
enemies. These differences aside, the drive to destroy the United
States and Israel are at base similar.
The latest attacks on Israel serve to remind us of something else too:
that the attempt to destroy the Jewish state has gone on since it came
into existence in 1948. For over a half century, the majority of Arabs
have persisted in seeing Israel as no more than a temporary irritant,
one they eventually expect to dispense with, at best permitting
Israelis to live in "Palestine" as a subject people and at worst
massacring them.
This destructive impulse has waxed and waned since 1948. When a
seemingly weak Israel first came into existence, it started very high.
Then 45 years of steadily losing to a tough and determined Israel left
the Arabs reeling by 1993 and partially open to the possibility of
accepting it. Rather than pushing this advantage to achieve full
acceptance, the Israelis made the historic mistake of easing up and
offering their two main enemies, the Syrians and Palestinians, an
advantageous deal.
These offers completely backfired: rather than understood as
far-sighted strategic concessions intended to close the conflict, Arabs
interpreted them as signs of Israel’s demoralization. The result was an
upsurge in violence and renewed Arab hopes of destroying Israel
through force of arms. For the first time since the 1960s, politicians,
civil servants, religious leaders, journalists, and intellectuals
routinely called for Israel’s elimination.
Obviously, this wall of rejection harms Israel, denying its bid to live
as a normal nation, subjecting its population to homicidal attacks,
and compelling it to take tough steps against neighbors. But Israel is
prospering despite these attacks, boasting of a high standard of
living, a democratic body politic, and a vibrant culture. In fact, the
real harm is felt primarily by Arabs. The destructive urge prevents
talented and venerable peoples from achieving their potential. Arabs
are focused on harming Israelis rather than improving their standards
of living, opening the political process to all, and insuring the rule
of law. The result is plain: Arabs are among the world leaders in
percentages of dictatorships, rogue states, violent conflicts, and
military spending.
A solution is easy to propose though much harder to implement: the
Arabs must reconcile themselves to Israel’s existence. Only that will
close down the century-old conflict, permit Israel to attain normality,
and launch Arabs on the path to modernity.
This interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which puts the onus
on Arabs, differs profoundly from the usual one. Even Israelis, not to
speak of Arabs and everyone else, tend to think that the Arab
acceptance of Israel is already done and now it is up to Israel to do
its part by making a series of concessions (handing over the Golan
Heights, Jerusalem, etc.).
Inflamed Rhetoric
If it was possible to believe in the Arab acceptance of Israel in 1993,
surely today’s inflamed rhetoric and the drumbeat of Palestinian
violence proves that it was a mirage. Israel has the unenviable task of
convincing its enemies that their dreams of its destruction will fail;
translated into action, this means it must show resolve and
toughness. How can it be otherwise? Such lethal intentions as one
finds widely in the Arabic-speaking countries can only be defeated
with strength. This will not be pleasant; Israel will incur both
foreign condemnation and domestic discontent, but it has no choice.
Understanding the conflict this new way has profound implications
for the West. It means that Europe and the United States, always
eager to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict, can most helpfully do their
part by offering fewer clever plans and making a greater effort to
comprehend its basic truths. It means coming to terms with the basic
fact of continued Arab rejection of Israel, with all its destructive
implications. It means seeing the Israeli predicament, tolerating its
need to be tough, and pressing the Arabs to make a drastic change in
course.
For many governments, even the American one, this approach
requires a reversal from current policy (which is to press Israel). Such
as shift will not come easily, but it is a near-prerequisite for anyone
truly serious about closing down the Arab-Israeli conflict.
URL for this Article:
http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1007327143123048960.djm
Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) http://www.DanielPipes.org
December 3, 2001
Israel’s 9-11
Afula, Hadera, Jerusalem and, yesterday, Haifa:
Within the space of a week, Palestinian suicide
offensives in four Israeli cities have left at least 32
dead and more than 200 wounded. Still more
would have died had Israeli security forces not
foiled a plot to assassinate Defense Minister
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and chased away two
terrorists who attempted to infiltrate elementary
schools in Jerusalem’s southern Talpiot region.
If this were not just the latest installment in
terrorist attacks suffered by Israelis, we would call
it the country’s 9-11. Nor would that be much of an
exaggeration. Because events in Israel loom so
large in the world’s consciousness, it’s easy to
forget how tiny the Jewish state really is. But
when one person in a country of six million loses his life
in a terrorist attack, it’s as if 50 people in
a country of 300 million had been killed. Take this
terrible calculus a step further and the death of
32 Israelis has the same physical and emotional toll on
Israelis as the death of some roughly 1,750
Americans or about 2,200 Europeans--more than have ever
been killed in Spain by ETA in almost
30 years. Then add up the losses Israel has suffered since
Yasser Arafat pledged an end to
Palestinian violence on the White House lawn in September
1993--almost 600--and you have the
equivalent of almost 30,000 civilian American deaths or
about 40,000 European ones.
We offer these observations in anticipation of what we
sense is coming next.
First, the Israeli government is going to respond
militarily: For it not to do so would be to turn the
virtue of restraint into a form of voluntary
self-annihilation. At the same time, that response is
likely to be calibrated in such a way as to appear more
fearsome on TV than in reality.
Second, after some polite gestures of condolence, the
"international community" will react to Israeli
retaliation by calling it "provocative" and
"disproportionate." This will be followed by intensive
diplomatic efforts based on the now sacrosanct "Mitchell"
principles, meaning Israel will have to
suffer through an endless string of self-important Western
diplomats who fancy their brand of
personal diplomacy can save the natives from themselves.
Third, sensing a contrary political tide, Arafat will,
with great fanfare, arrest a handful of militants,
most of them second- or third-tier figures. For the West,
this token move will prove sufficient
evidence that Arafat has "regained control of events" and
remains committed to the peace process.
The militants will be released within a few months.
Finally, the status quo will remain unchanged, and a
nearly identical scenario will play out in the
next 30 to 90 days.
How can we offer such a confident prediction? Because
we’ve already seen this movie at least a
dozen times. It happened in June after the Tel-Aviv
discotheque bombing that left 19 dead, it
happened in August after the Sbarro pizza restaurant
bombing that killed 14, and it happened in
October after the murder of Israeli cabinet minister
Rehavam Zeevi.
Indeed, we are already seeing it. Mr. Arafat has called an
emergency session of his cabinet and
arrested a dozen-odd members of Islamic Jihad. Israel has
promised some kind of response. And
after telling reporters yesterday that the weekend
violence would be seen as Arafat’s "moment of
truth," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell went on to
suggest that what had taken place was
actually an attack against the Palestinian strongman. "It
was an attack against his authority, it was
an attack against Palestinian leadership, and it was an
attack that he could not overlook," said the
secretary.
Steven Plaut
Copyright © 2001 by Steven Plaut. -Published with permission
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