The worst curse

The other day it hit me again for a moment while watching Channel 1 TV: In wake of the prolonged Israeli blockade, which has led to near destitution, Palestinians and left-wing activists were filmed trying to transfer crates of grapes grown by Palestinian farmers.

It wasn't a particularly brutal scene: The violence wasn't anything irregular; on the contrary, it was predictable and standard: The grapes were thrown on the road, protestors were beaten, and nonsensical excuses regarding Israel's security were sounded.

The threat to our existence was lifted, thank God. The Palestinian grape growers were refused entry. Next we saw news anchor Haim Yavin raise an eyebrow and go onto the next item.

Israeli leftists also shot at

The 15 seconds of air time given to the incident was only due to Israeli involvement. Israeli left-wing activists are not fireproof, as demonstrated in the shooting incident of an Israeli demonstrator at Masha, a Palestinian village south of the West Bank city of Qalqilya in 2004.

When Israelis cross the line, namely the Green Line, the IDF doesn't hesitate to open fire on protestors (not to mention the foreign left-wing activists – God have mercy on them).

In such an instance the IDF is careful to clear perpetrators of any guilt and suffices with reviewing "the rules of engagement." However, the presence of Israelis, even leftists, warrant documentation. Without it this little bit of injustice would have gone unnoticed and would have quickly been suppressed.

Far more lethal conflicts take place everyday, but not a word is heard. With complete honesty, how many of you remember when IDF soldiers fired towards unarmed protestors demonstrating against the fence in front of the TV cameras, and how many remember that one of them was seriously wounded and almost lost his life? How many of you remember how quickly the IDF covered up the incident? I'm willing to bet, not many. We have become accustomed to such events.

But habits are powerful. They enable us to turn cries into noise and to turn injustices to deviations from protocol. They enable us to keep a clean and moral self image, even when the stench emanating from the piles of injustices cover us from head to toe.

The most shocking aspect of the event the other day wasn't the use of force. I do not advocate turning a cheek, and am not among believers of proportionality (it enables the attacker to dictate the intensity of the conflict). I believe that a life-loving country has the right for self defense even when it calls fro preemptive strikes. I am of the opinion that violence is the only language that all parties understand.

However, what we witnessed the other day wasn't violence aimed at achieving an objective – because what type of threat could the crate of grapes possibly pose to state security? It was outright violence, foolish evil that demonstrates our brutality and the loss of any basic human capability for empathy towards man – let alone the enemy.

Worse, I realized that the mind has to muster energies the heart is unable to produce to actually feel shocked.

The prophet Isaiah described this process in one of his most chilling prophesies: "Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed."

The inability to recognize injustice, to see and hear morality, and to comprehend it, is the worst of all curses. I recognize the symptoms in myself; I recognize them within my society, but not to worry, it'll be gone in an instant and we can resume our routine.