You Can Run, But You Can't Hide 4

No reply from Uri. A renewed note from Salman to Uri, 27/1/17:

Dear Uri,

Reading your weekly article has become a ritual for me. It is full of knowledge and appreciation of facts and understanding of the lessons of history. In all matters and about all countries. Except Palestine.

You did not respond to my last letter. Perhaps you thought it too strong and harsh. But it was true. Sometimes truth cannot be answered.

You did not read my book or did not wish to comment. That is not a problem.

Europeans of Jewish faith gave Europe a lot of culture, philosophy, science and ideals of liberation. That was not because they read the Torah daily, but because they were the product of European 'civilisation'. Einstein, Lenin, and Marx did that, and the world should be grateful to them as decent human beings.

Those Europeans, Ashkenazim, aka Israelis, when they descended on Palestine, acted against every humanitarian principle they espoused when they were in Europe. They smashed children's brains out (Dawayima), bayoneted pregnant women's stomachs (Dayr Yassin), burnt old men alive (Lajjun), shot farmers in ditches they were forced to dig as graves (Tantoura), threw them in a well (Sa'sa and Ayn Zeitoun), set a village ablaze and threw hand grenades at people inside their homes (Bureir).

Above all, they depopulated 600 Palestinian localities, the worst event in Palestine's 5000-year history.

They were terrorists of the worst kind. Those who should have known better did these awful things.

You belonged to the Irgun, the 'worst' terrorist group, if grading can be made.

I know that you have spent years calling for 'peace'. But your peace means that the killer should be forgiven, the thief should get away with the stolen goods, and those expelled from their homes should be thrown a few pieces of silver to shut up.

No remorse, no repentance, no justice, no remedy. Just empty words.

How could those settlers live with this double life, liberty in Europe and crime in Palestine?

The answer is schizophrenia. The European Jews, aka Israelis, live in a bubble of denial. A fake world. They shut the world of crime out of their minds and the minds of the adoring West. And preach peace, democracy, science and art instead.

No Nakba. Perish the thought. No word 'Palestinian'. No flag. Oh yes. There are no refugees. Just Arabs who drifted from Arabia Deserta into the land of milk and honey, created by European settlers who came to this empty desert land and made it a paradise.

They are cowards. I say this again.

Some years ago, my nephew, now a professor in Berlin, visited my birthplace, al- Ma'in, with his uncle, showing him the places he knew. My nephew told me this story. While they were walking around, an older settler with a little girl came by in a car and asked: 'Where are you from?' The uncle said: 'From here', and pointed to the land. The settler said: 'Then you are Abu Sitta?'

His teenage daughter, or granddaughter, was curious, leaned over, looked at them, and asked her grandfather: 'Who are they?'

He pushed her away and drove off fast. The little girl must have discovered the fraud in the old man's tale. He did not have the courage to explain. He hid in his bubble.

How long will this last? The bubble will burst one day.

Will the European Jews ever mend their ways? Was their preaching in the Age of the Enlightenment just a big hoax?

Time will tell. At a price.

Salman

No reply from Uri again. From Salman to Uri, 18/2/17:

Dear Uri,

I realise you do not want to reply to my letters. They are either too painful or cannot be rebutted. Certainly, they are not irrelevant.

I keep writing to you since we met in Paris over a decade ago because I think you have unique characteristics.

You have been a terrorist. You witnessed the Nakba, so you cannot deny it. You tried to forge peace with Palestinians, but only on Zionist terms. You have a grasp of all the facts, so you cannot claim that you did not know.

So why are you still in a denial bubble?

So it, loud and clear: the Nakba was the near-complete ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Israel is a colonial project, and its umbilical cord is the colonial powers. God-given, or empty, uninhabited, Palestine is hogwash.

Say it. Say it as a last minute CONFESSION. It purifies the soul, and perfumes the memory.

I am waiting. Because I have hope in human redemption.

Salman

From Uri to Salman, 18/2/17:

Alas, the story is much more complicated.

All the best,

Uri