In October 2011 an extraordinary opportunity to apprehend the ill-defined “Middle East” conflict was offered in the form of a play within the play. Discourse was disabled by flesh and blood images acting out the drama with exquisite unity and perfect casting. Playing the role of Israel, Gilad Shalit, courageous survivor of five years of unspeakable deprivation, emerged frail, pale but gloriously resistant. The little that we know of the conditions of his imprisonment is already too much. Kidnapped at the age of 19 near the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel (two IDF soldiers were killed in the cross-border attack), held in some sort of dungeon, starved of human company, starved of daylight, undernourished, not even given eyeglasses with which to see the ugly contours of his constricted world, Gilad stood before us, a miraculous survivor. The celestial light of dignity suffused his flesh and bones with metaphysical force.
What decent human being would not have misgivings about the release, in exchange for Shalit, of 1027 murderers, thieves, and thugs determined to use their liberation as a license to renew the persecution of Israeli Jews? And who could not feel, seeing the first images of Gilad roughly handled by Hamas and Egyptian intermediaries, that no price was too dear for the release of one single human being from the tomb in which he was jailed and left to slowly extinguish like a flame without oxygen.
On one side of the border husky men were welcomed triumphantly with bear hugs and slaps on the back, while Gilad Shalit, still wearing the ugly shirt imposed by his jailers, had to endure one last act of torture: an Egyptian TV interview conducted in violation of the swap deal. Freelance journalist Shahira Amin, bare headed and ostensibly modern, prodded the dazed young Israeli with insolent questions.
Every detail counts in the play within the play, every detail speaks volumes. Compounding her lack of journalistic integrity and disregard for the elementary rules of decency, Shahira Amin later complained to a BBC newscaster that she often had to repeat questions because Gilad Shalit seemed to have difficulty understanding her. Elsewhere, defending herself against critics, she is quoted as saying: “I know that he was very eager to go home and see his family, but it only took a few minutes and it was important to let the world know that he was all right.”[i] Exquisitely feminine refinement of cruelty! Amin’s sham humanity is revealed to be corrosive acid in the light of a photo posted on the Israel Matzav site, showing the interview from the journalist’s viewpoint: masked Hamas operatives are standing behind Gilad, breathing down his neck.[ii]
Click below to continue reading:
Swing Low Sweet Sharia > Nidra Poller
No comments:
Post a Comment