Peace addicts

original Hebrew by Etya Zar

We are peace addicts.

We started using somewhere in ‘73. Before or after Yom Kippur, it’s unclear.

And like all addicts, we're willing to pay a lot for this drug.

We gave up all of Sinai, destroyed flourishing communities, gave up oil fields, thriving tourism, just for this drug. That picture of the handshake between Begin and Sadat gave us some insane trips. No more war.

After the Sinai trip we fell into the bloody reality of the Lebanon war. So we took more of this drug. Just not war. Hello!? Now they're throwing rocks at us? We'll protect the windows from rocks. They're shooting at us? We'll protect the vehicles against gunfire. They're firing missiles at us? We'll invent an Iron Dome. 

Are we being murdered? The long arm of the IDF will catch the murderer. But it won't deter the next attacker. You won't harm his family, or the habitat that raised him. Or his motivation to murder, because hey, it could lead to a flare-up, and we're just looking to sniff quietly. We won't go to war because they're murdering civilians here, because axes are being used to murder in a synagogue. Because knives are stabbing people. It prevents us from shooting up.

We won't go to war when family members are slaughtered in their beds. We won't go to war when they shoot two young brothers at point blank range. No. We want to snort.

If a soldier is kidnapped from us, we're ready to release a thousand murderous terrorists in exchange for him. Because the other option to bring about his release is to fight. And we already promised our little girls that the final war was already over.

Every now and then we go on a campaign, to calm the terror and the missiles a bit. But we finish as quickly as possible and promise our terrorists that quiet will be rewarded with quiet.

We preferred to slink out of Lebanon in the dead of night, abandon outposts full of military equipment, shoot up, and tell ourselves that now it'll be safer. Hezbollah may be sitting on the fence, but at least we're not there anymore.

We're ready to leave the flourishing and prosperous Gush Katif, to ruin the lives of thousands of people, for a few more doses of this drug. To enjoy a trip where generals say disengagement is good for security. For an amorphous promise of peaceful and good days to come. What a wonderful drug.

In our hallucinations we envision a new Middle East. One hundred years of peace. We get off on pictures of mass murderer Arafat shaking hands with Rabin, and even put exciting background music on the radio to make the trip perfect. Those murdered in terror attacks are victims of peace, because it is no longer a war.

For this drug we deliberately fence ourselves off. We build barriers, dig obstacles, invest millions in observation systems, defense systems. We try to “contain terror,” tell ourselves fairy tales about the fabric of life, about economic peace and well-being that will bring peace. And of Gaza's citizens we say, if only we give them strong hope, Gaza will prosper.

It turns out we took an overdose.