A handful of land

As long as deep within the heart
The Jewish soul is warm
And toward the edges of the east
An eye to Zion looks
Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years
To be a free people in our own land
In the land of Zion and Jerusalem.
To be a free people in our own land
In the land of Zion and Jerusalem.

(From the song Ha-Tikvah (The Hope), the anthem of the Zionist movement and the state of Israel)



On that day, God made a covenant with Abram, saying: "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites; the Chitties, Perizites, Refaim; the Emorites, Canaanites, Gigashites and Yevusites." (Genesis 15:18-21)
"And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your temporary residence, all the land of Canaan as an eternal possession and I will be a God to them." (Genesis 17:8)

Year after year, generation after generation, mothers in the land of Israel must be telling their children one of the oldest stories humanity knows - about a man named Abraham; An old man who was promised a piece of land by god himself that he was to rule and showcase to the world as a model nation.

And for thousands of years, every jewish child carried this story close to his heart. Even when the nation itself didn't exist, even when there was not even a glimmer of hope that all jews would one day be under one roof, he kept it alive as a hope, as a prayer, and as a dream for a better tomorrow for himself and his children. He lived and died in the hope that he would one day be able to set foot in the land of Israel and escape from the road to perdition.

And through every line of history, they have been damned and bruised. They have been chased out of their homes by the romans, then by the arabs and finally the ottoman empire. One man was crucified on a fateful friday and an entire diaspora bore the cross for centuries forever without redemption. They were killed at the drop of a hat - A jewish captain was caught for passing secrets to Germany during World war I and thousands of jewish names filled mortuary registers. The nation he (is supposed to have) helped lost the war and history carries its aftermath as an irrepairable stain, as an albatross around its neck. And when men were gassed and killed, children experimented upon, not ONE country opened their doors for them citing appeasing immigration laws.

And finally at the end of the war, the destitutes declared the land of Israel as theirs and since then the borders of the nation have been bleeding. But every man there holds to his land as his own, for he knows it's not about the edifice that he's built on top, but about a millenium old dream that's woven as a canvas on which the nation stands.

And so when men and women are asked to evacuate their homes so that people they have been fighting against for centuries to hold on to their handful of land, can come and house themselves there, I have an inkling of an idea of how that might feel. Forget losing your entire eco-system, your home and every dream and memory that you built it with, your neighbours and friends and dispersing as nomads into lands seeking a new destiny. They have been doing it all their lives - from the romans, from the nazis, from the gullitone of fate. This runs deeper than that - this refutes his entire existence for he has a tryst with the land that he belongs to that he will breathe his last there.

I know a thing or a two about losing one's land - for I belong a country that's lost thousands of men on guarding a state and calling it ours. Our scriptures don't call it our promised land, we haven't fought the entire world to make it ours, our destinies aren't woven into its landscapes, but I would HATE to part with even a single speck of it for it has long ceased to be just a piece of land for us. It defines our pride, our collective existence. I know no country man who gives a damn about losing it to anyone else who may call it theirs.


You find them everywhere - CNN, BBC, Reuters, Rediff - Read them! Each one of them! Read about men who have left everything they have had and dropping into the gaza strip from timbukthu for a cause they believe in, See the soldier who's doused in acid but doesn't hit back at the protesters because he can understand what the other one is going through, Look at the kid who's holding the holy book for the soldiers to read. These men who have to quit their homes, and these soldiers are forcing them to do it, and an entire nation that follows it on TV, I am sure it's not easy on any of them. Yet less than a dozen are killed (Touch wood!) - Men who do lose it and kill fellow men are collectively blamed and I truly respect them for that because in a time when lives are lost for no reason at all, to value it amidst so much loss is TRULY remarkable.

The one question that demands to be answered is WHY? To part with something that you value as much or probably more than your own existence is extremely painful. But what is worse is doing it for something you don't believe in. Not even one bit. I am not questioning the validity of this move for right to this land is an international issue that has been discussed, compromised upon and finally endorsed by both sides. But why would Ariel Sharon do this? Because he believes this is the right thing to do? Because he finally wants to mark his page in history with one good deed? Or probably because he has finally been forced to compromise on his share of the land. Why?

Centuries of hopelessness has removed any benevolence from our opinion of politics. Politics at best is about representation, leave alone reform. It's about representing the views of a million diverging views that agree on a tiny miniscule point of inactivity where 545 people house themselves and call it a parliament. No one believes a man who wages a war for welfare or for means of warfare.

You can always justify a victory, for it's finally victors who write history? But a loss, a sacrifice - from an erstwhile soldier. Why? I am probably being cynical and fail to appreciate the goodness in him, in humanity. Do you see any?