THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

is not the Arab of scorn, contempt, incitement and death. Reality, as bitter as it maybe, cannot erase this.I do believe wholeheartedly that despite our malaise, we prefer to live with ourneighbors in dignity and respect and not to turn into wild beasts and oppressors, likeour persecutors just two generations ago.Such an attitude was well noted by Israeli journalist and novelist Davide Grossman,who spent seven weeks leading up to the twentieth anniversary of the occupationliberationtraveling in Israel’s occupied territories. Fluent in Arabic, he spent time inrefugee camps, observed proceedings in military courts, and visited settlements andPalestinian cities and villages, where he was a welcome guest. The now defunctKoteret Rashit newsweekly published a special issue based on Grossman’s soulsearching. He later added a few new chapters and turned his experience into ahaunting book, The Yellow Wind, about the corruption and squalor of the late 1980s.The book saddened me. But I was wrong to think that we had reached rockbottom, from which we could only move up. Twenty years have passed and todaythose depths seem like humanistic utopia. Grossman writes about word laundering:A state in confusion rewrites a new vocabulary for itself. Israel is not the f irst state to do so . . . but . . . it is revolting to w itness t he slowdefacing. A new species of recruited, traitorous words is developingslowly; words that have lost their original meaning, words that do notdescribe reality, but aspire to hide it.Israel’s word laundering is among the most advanced in the world, in part becausethe reality here keeps changing and requires new words every time. The reinventionof words started long ago with the good old boys from the Palmah, one of themilitias that fought for Israel’s independence. They never stole; they merely “pulled”from the chicken coop. In the army we did not steal, only “completed inventory.” Wenever sexually harassed women, we only asked what exactly she meant by “no.” Wewere educated to respect the “purity of arms,” an oxymoronic term meant to cleansethe conscience, as if killing with a “pure” firearm legitimizes killing. In time, weadvanced so much we reached the heights of self-deceit. When our armed forces, inwhich our children serve, kill people who pose no immediate threat, who are notabout to commit an act of terror and are not considered ticking bombs, we stopreading, knowing, hearing, and caring, because the army uses the term “targeted