In the New York Times, where Israeli Soldiers Stand Firm, but Duty Wears on the Soul, an Israeli man defends his military service in the West Bank and accuses "these people" (Palestinians) of being liars.
That was enough for Uriel Simon, 77 years old, a professor emeritus of biblical studies at Bar-Ilan University and a noted religious dove.
“As for liars,” Mr. Simon said, then paused. “My father was a liar. My grandfather was a liar. How else did we cross lines to get to this country? We stayed alive by lying. We lied to the Russians, we lied to the Germans, we lied to the British! We lie for survival! Jacob the Liar was my father!” he said.
As for the Palestinians, he said: “Of course they lie! Everyone lies at a checkpoint! We lied at checkpoints, too.”
Everyone is afraid of mirrors, Mr. Simon said, readjusting the knitted skullcap on his nimbus of white hair. “We hate the mirror. We don’t want to look at ourselves. We don’t like photographs of us — we say, ‘Oh, that’s not a very good likeness.’ We want to be much nicer than we are. But here there are also prophets who are mirrors, who are not afraid of kings and generals. The prophet says, ‘You are ugly,’ and we don’t want to hear it, but we have to look at the mirror honestly, without fear.”
Shma'a, Yisroel! Sam'a Israel!
Hat tip to The Arabist.
Uri Simon's father was Ernst Simon, a friend of Martin Buber's, early Hebrew Univ. professor, & founder of the early Zionist peace group, Brit Shalom. Simon fils also read my very first essay written about the Israeli Arab conflict when I was 17 yrs old. A remarkable man as you can tell by his powerful comments above. I too wrote a post on this story which is linked to this comment.
Posted by: Richard Silverstein | March 24, 2007 at 12:57 AM