Stop stop stop!
Written by Corinna Hasofferett
Published August 04, 2004

My USA fellow bloggers, I won't interfere as long as you discuss just your elections, after all it might only affect my life...

But...

"We will never be seen as an honest broker as long as we support Israel - are you suggesting we no longer support Israel?" (Comment 20)

By "Israel", Do you mean Corinna and the majority of the Israelis who honestly want out of the territories and back to sanity - or our present misleading government?

All you need is to Support Sanity. There are a myriad of ways to resolve conflicts. A leader up to his ears in wars might seem resolute, but resolution in itself is not such an impressive quality. We need leaders resolute in a sincere quest for rational solutions.

I was just reading now about the Vietnam war at a few Israeli academic sites while simultaneously educating myself about our own wars here. It is completely amazing to see how generation after generation was led by the nose by leaders admittedly clinging to their chairs.

You have a choice - be gullible now, again and again, and then tear your hair twenty years from now, or learn from that past and act, resolutely, here and now.

You know what the problem is?

Honest people cannot even grasp, let alone internalize, that dishonesty exists.
It keeps us blissfully eternally surprised.

Unknown Territory This is one of the more unusual books to have been published recently in Israel. It's also a book that's hard to categorize. It's not a standard novel, not really a book of memoirs, not actually a work of history - but it is a book that offers a different, surprising take on Israel's first years. A loving and painful take, to resort to a cliche. Corinna Hasofferett, embarked on this literary journey in the wake of two friends who were with her in a youth movement and were killed in Israel's cross-border reprisal raids. For years she collected testimonies of people who knew them, taping and editing. She interweaves the testimonies, almost without intervention on her part. The result is a narrative flow that revives the period without any prettification or mythologizing. She jokingly describes the book, "B'Eretz Lo Yadati" ("Unknown Territory," in English), as a Fighters Talk - referring to the famous book ("Siah Lohamim") in which soldiers described their experiences in the 1967 Six-Day War - but with no censorship. There are a few interesting revelations in the book, apart from the story of Yehuda Kan Dror. For example, confessions about the killing of captives, or a surprising confession from a member of Unit 101 - the precursor of the Paratroops, Unit 101 was established by Ariel Sharon in the early 1950s - that the unit did not have any fatalities because it operated almost exclusively against civilian targets. But concentrating on these aspects of the book could be misleading. It offers a far broader picture of a society that was still licking its wounds from the War of Independence, the picture of a country in which the signs of the previous Palestinian inhabitants were still visible, a picture of people whose memory of the Holocaust is not something they learned in school. This is Corinna's sixth book, and she has published it herself - both for economic reasons and also to avoid having an outside eye that might cut sensitive passages. So it's not easy to find the book in bookstores. But it's worth making the effort. Corinna's books, in Hebrew, are available for purchase directly from her Hebrew blog: http://www.notes.co.il/corinna/1823.asp
Keep reading for information and comments on this article, and add some feedback of your own!
Stop stop stop!
Published: August 04, 2004
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Section: Politics
Writer: Corinna Hasofferett
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Comments

#1 — August 4, 2004 @ 14:28PM — Hal Pawluk [URL]

I take it Netanyahu is also not on your list of favorite leaders of all time :-)

I think one of the problems here is a fondness for gross over-simplifications. Israel is a particularly thorny issue because when you complain about some specific action or policy there, people are prone to jump up and immediately start shouting "anti-Semitism."

Mind you, that isn't generally true of the American Jews I know, who seem to have a better grasp of the nuances of reality in Israel. (Some of them do shout, but they also tend to stay on topic. :-)

Thanks for the view from the real world.

#2 — August 4, 2004 @ 18:11PM — Corinna Hasofferett [URL]

Thanks Hal,

"I take it Netanyahu is also not on your list of favorite leaders of all time :-)"

You know who are among my leaders?

Martin Buber
Martin Luther King
My heart

#3 — August 6, 2004 @ 00:12AM — RJ [URL]

Isn't Sharon forcing settlers to abandon their settlements, and pulling out of Gaza?

Sounds like a pro-peace move to me.

Also, his building of the wall has reduced terror attacks against Israel.

Sharon is acting more defensively than offensively. You, as a Lefty, should appreciate that.

#4 — August 6, 2004 @ 01:09AM — Corinna Hasofferett [URL]

Hi, RJ,
Haven't you noticed my name is Corinna?
Do you have a Gmail account? That's (and the lab) are correct places to use labels.

Present continuous (Sharon is forcing)is for an action that has already begun and in process. Allow me to wake you up when this will be happening...

Meanwhile just think: If you happened to be enclosed by a wall, your lands taken, your house demolished, left stranded - will a wall deter you or will despair lead you to unspeakable desperate action?

I happen to live in Tel Aviv. Two weeks ago a bomb exploded in a bus by chance I wasn't on it that day and minute.

It is possible to have peace here. For this we need leaders to switch on both sides from violence to a peace agreement. At this stage in the conflict we need outside mediators to throw water on the fire, not flamming.

#5 — August 6, 2004 @ 01:14AM — Corinna Hasofferett [URL]

Oh. As of "Sharon is acting more defensively than offensively" - I see I have no choice but to post soon an article just so entitled. Stay Awake!...

#6 — August 6, 2004 @ 01:15AM — RJ [URL]

Didn't Barak try "peace" with Arafat, Corinna?

That didn't work...

#7 — August 6, 2004 @ 02:15AM — Corinna Hasofferett [URL]

My dear RJ, even the Bible claims it took six days to create the world, so how could Corinna answer all your life encompassing question in one post or comment.

Wait for my future post.

As for Barak - some of the team involved there, Israelis, claim we were misinformed on this issue as well.

Don't forget, if you happen to remember, that Barak voted against the Oslo Accords when they were brought to Goverment vote (before they were signed). He happened to be a Minister then. So maybe the cat was left to guard the cream. It got sour for sure.

I do not know Arafat, but one thing I'm sure - both our peoples might benefit from a better, sane leadership.

It's bound to happen. Meanwhile, guess who's paying the high price, on both sides.

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