Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The State of the Union is (adjective)

This week, President Obama will deliver the annual “State of the Union” to Congress, broadcast live throughout the United States, and around the world. Commentators and pundits will spend days analyzing and commenting on Obama’s address from even before he begins, with advanced copies provided to the press. Many are looking at this address as much as a “State of the Obama Presidency” as it is about the state of the Union. Indeed, it will be interesting to hear what the President has to say about the state of the Union, reflecting on the end of his first year in office and looking ahead. The President is likely to begin his remarks with the traditional formula, “Madam Speaker, the State of the Union is (adjective).” The question is what adjective President Obama will use. It’s unlikely that he’ll pick a word that resembles one which Jimmy Carter used in a different address, and which has haunted him since, malaise. And he may want to use a word that has not used before, or at least one that has been over used. What do you think? What word will President Obama use? What word should he use? While not scientific, please do share your thoughts before the pundits have their say and before Obama begins his remarks. And while you’re at it, please share any notable highlights of Obama’s first year, good or bad. Living for the first 40 years of my life in the United States, it’s clear that the state of the Union is important to all Americans. However, living in Israel since 2004, it has become clear that the state of the Union is something that is important worldwide, on a myriad of levels. Ideally, please share your adjectives and any other remarks at http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com, or you may go to my Facebook page but since that is an audience of limited number, I’d rather you share your thoughts on my blog. If you don’t want your comments shared publically, you may send me an e-mail at no1abba@gmail.com.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Remembering To Never Forget

The following excerpt is from “Hidden” (http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3522.htm) a memoir of the survival of a brother and sister from Kanczuga, Poland, the town in which my paternal grandmother’s family once lived for generations. Their account of life in Kanczuga and their lives in hiding is deeply personal and I share it this week, marking the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Rather than passing along things that have been circulating e-mail lists and the internet for years, I hope to add a moment of meaning and a personal reflection on the Holocaust for those who read this, and for future generations, even if it is only those who are my own descendants. While Jews observe Yom Hashoah on the 27th of the month of Nissan, international Holocaust Remembrance Day will take place this week, January 27. In an era of growing Holocaust denial, and the aging of the remaining survivors whose personal experiences will one day only be a distant memory, I share this account both because it is personal and vivid, and also because while I do not know the Rosens and did not know their family, the life and murder of their relatives as noted here were lived and ended the same as my grandmother’s family. In the event that one day someone should ever doubt the veracity of these accounts, I take the liberty of sharing something that is also deeply personal and connected to my own family in Kanczuga, and the recount below. In the early 1990s, I became president of the First Kanczuger Society, a Landsmannschaft (welfare and cultural associations for Jews from cities, towns and villages throughout Europe and Russia established to provide kinship and support for émigrés, survivors and their descendents) established by my great-grandfather, Shalom Yakov Birnbach, in 1901. In the course of meeting several of the members who were born in Kanczuga and who remembered my family, I got to know Benny Shanzer (Yankele Kelstecher*). Benny shared with me that when my father came to the US, Benny got him his first job. And Benny also remembered my great-grandmother, Dreizel Hamel Birnbach, who he credited with saving his life. As the Jews of Kanczuga were being rounded up to be murdered, Dreizel turned to Yankele and said, “You’re too young.” Yankele knew that meant they were going to be murdered and used this as the impetus to escape, and survive, as is recounted just in passing below. I have never been to Kanczuga and can only imagine what life was like there before 1939. My sense is that just as in any community there were rivalries and differences within the community, yet there was nevertheless a great sense of community. This sense of community was what motivated my great-grandmother to inspire Yankele to save himself. It is what brought Yankele, Bernie and Yehuda to come back to Kanczuga in April 1945 to bury the seven Jews murdered in a pogrom after the War ended and to protect the survivors. It is what made it second nature for Benny to help find a job for the grandson of Dreizel who saved his life when he arrived in the US as a new immigrant himself. While this week we mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, my relatives who were murdered, with their neighbors witnessing it all standing by as spectators, on a hill on the outskirts of Kanczuga never made it to Auschwitz. I remember my great-grandparents, Shalom Yakov and Dreizel Birnbach, their children, sons and daughters in law, siblings, cousins and grandchildren who were murdered in a hastily dug ditch in the summer of 1942. I also remember the relatives on my grandfather’s side whose names are not all known but whose lives must be remembered nonetheless. While the account below is not about them, their lives were lived alongside those who are mentioned, as were their lives taken from them in exactly the same way. May we, and the generations that follow, always remember to never forget. Hidden – Fay Walker and Leo Rosen Prologue 1942 (http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3522.htm) We were hidden in the countryside by the time the war flooded the streets of tiny Kanczuga, until the screams and bursts of gunfire were as familiar as the cries of the peddlers hawking their wares in the rynek, the town’s main marketplace. More than a hundred of our people were executed at point blank range in front of the Brill’s house. Then early one morning, two young SS men, ably aided by the Polish police, rounded up the hundreds of Jews who had not managed to hide themselves in time. The officers deposited then in the main square, where they stood in shocked silence, some of them still in nightclothes, shivering in the sparkling dawn. Now the police herded their prisoners past the jeering crowd and in to the synagogue. Our people struggled to stare straight ahead, but, as they trudged the dusty streets, they found themselves peering into the faces they had known all their lives, into the flat features and pale eyes of their closest neighbors, empty and cold as death. Kanczuga‘s newest synagogue was a good quarter mile from the Jewish cemetery on the edge of town. It was not quite complicated, but already it was the pride of our community, a spacious sanctuary large enough to seat several hundred people. That Shabbos, every inch of the shul was filled for the first time. Yet it was eerily quiet, the low murmurs punctuated only by the occasional barking if a policeman. Our family, apart from the two in hiding, filled the floor by the eastern wall. Tata’s brother David sat with his wife and three of their five children, Aron, Runie, and little Golda, named after our grandmother. The other two children had been on vacation with their mother’s parents and had already been captured and sent to Siberia. Wordless and watchful, our Tata fingered a pocket of his long, black coat and stroked his beard. Beside him, Mamche, her face raw from weeping, rested a delicate hand on one of my sisters’ shoulders. Now and then she whispered to little Tunia, who was serious even in the best of times. The child’s face, olive-skinned as a Gypsy’s, glistened with tears. Pretty Senia, Aryan-blond and almost a teenager, seemed out of place in this group of frightened Jews. She scanned the wan faces, searching for friends from school. With so many bodies huddled together, the room was close with the odor of human flesh. People slept standing, straight as sentries; others twisted into unnatural positions on the floor. At some point, rain tapped a somber staccato on the roof and windows. A poor tradesman, reverential and cowering, broke off from the crowd to consult with Tata. “Do you think they’ll deport us instead of killing us? Maybe send us away and spare our lives, God willing?” Our taciturn father shrugged and shook his head. “Who is to say?” he asked. “I have heard that the families who didn’t come to the square to be picked up were shot in their homes. We can only wait and put our faith in God. God will provide for us. God has never forsaken us.” Like everyone else, my parents had come to the shul without packing a bag. But my best friend, Bruchcia Laufer, whose family had been temporarily spared because they were engineers still useful to the Reich, visited every day with supplies. That Friday morning, she brought two white Shabbos candles. The crowded room was hushed now, as Mamche lit the trembling flames. For a moment, her face was illuminated, as if from within. When she said the bracha, her shimmering soprano could scarcely be heard, so quickly did it make its way to God. Blessed are You, oh Lord our God, King of the Universe, who commands us to light the Sabbath candles. Shabbos morning arrived warm and bright, but the synagogue was musky with fear. Several men began to daven, and Tata joined them in prayer, swaying back and forth to the familiar chants. Mamche, as a woman forbidden to pray with the men, hummed the wailing nigunim under her breath, her voice sweet and smooth as her homemade jam, her pitch never wavering. The families were still praying when the police ordered them to leave their families and trek the short distance up the hill to the cemetery. Mamche gripped the girls harder, her fingers digging so deeply into their flesh that they squirmed, but they did not break away. Our father, never a demonstrative man, reached for our mother’s hand. The gesture was so unexpected that she met his eyes with a smile. Then the butt of an unseen rifle knocked Tata squarely between the shoulder blades, and he flinched and moved on without speaking. They traveled a short distance in wagons. A boy named Yankele Kelstecher jumped out of his wagon and disappeared into the woods before the policemen could fire.(*) Then the men were ordered out of the wagons. Perhaps the thought of Yankele gave the men strength as they climbed in a thin, halting line along the muddy path that wove through a cornfield. They passed a scarecrow, mocking in unfettered repose. At the crest of the hill was the tree-lined cemetery, its tombstones swathed in even rows of shrubbery. As if on command, the men paused to catch their breaths and to wipe their brows. They gazed out over the crest of the hill to the patchwork of fields below. For a moment, they forgot their terror and shook their heads at the lush landscape. It could not be helped; they loved this country. A straight-backed officer handed out shovels and told them to dig. “Keep digging,” he said. “We’ll tell you when you’re finished.” Most of the men were spindly and weak, with soft palms more used to the Hebrew siddur than to the spade. “Dig, keep digging! Thought you could get away with something, eh? Thought you could hide from us, you filthy Jews?” When at last they were allowed to stop, the men stood in silence beside the freshly dug earth. Their faces slick with tears and sweat, they stared at the raised rifles in astonishment. At eyes opaque as marbles, that didn’t look back. Then they saw the other eyes, those of their neighbors, the customers in their shops, the people to whom they had just last week sold a loaf of bread, who gave them a good price on chickens and eggs. The goyim stood or sat on their haunches in unruly rows alongside the policemen. Whole families, with baskets of cheese and bread and homemade wine, little ones scurrying along the fringes of the crowd, hunting down field mice. The chattering spectators were in an edgy, festive mood, the women’s heads bobbing in their colorful scarves. “Zyd!” they cried. “Jew! Out with the Jews!” The policemen raised their rifles. One hundred hearts were broken before a single shot was fired. When it was over, the audience applauded and cheered. The next day, the sunlight was so fierce that the women shielded their eyes when they were led outside. They climbed through the tall grass directly to the pit, as if they had done so many times before, their children sobbing at their skirts. A fetid smell they did not recognize reached their nostrils, and they covered their faces in horror. When the policemen loaded their rifles, Senia clutched Mamche’s waist. “I don’t want to die!” she cried. “The sun is shining so brightly, and I am so young, Mamche. I want to grow up in this beautiful world.” For the first time in Senia’s life, our Mamche could do nothing to help. She could not hold her any closer; she could not love her any more. One policeman who witnessed this scene was so moved that, later, he would recall Senia’s words to the Kwasniaks, who had worked for us back in town. Then a bullet shattered our little sister’s face, and she collapsed at Mamche’s feet, spraying blood in her new white shoes. Next, Tunia dropped onto Senia, her breath a shallow purr. Even before the third shot was fired, our mother fell on them both, trying to protect what was no longer hers. Beside the gunmen, the onlookers, some of whom had tied handkerchiefs over their noses to stave off the scent, clapped and shouted their approval. A burst of laughter skimmed the crowd. Neighbors clapped each other on the back, not quite meeting each other’s gaze.

Remembering To Never Forget

The following excerpt is from “Hidden” (http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3522.htm) a memoir of the survival of a brother and sister from Kanczuga, Poland, the town in which my paternal grandmother’s family once lived for generations. Their account of life in Kanczuga and their lives in hiding is deeply personal and I share it this week, marking the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Rather than passing along things that have been circulating e-mail lists and the internet for years, I hope to add a moment of meaning and a personal reflection on the Holocaust for those who read this, and for future generations, even if it is only those who are my own descendants. While Jews observe Yom Hashoah on the 27th of the month of Nissan, international Holocaust Remembrance Day will take place this week, January 27. In an era of growing Holocaust denial, and the aging of the remaining survivors whose personal experiences will one day only be a distant memory, I share this account both because it is personal and vivid, and also because while I do not know the Rosens and did not know their family, the life and murder of their relatives as noted here were lived and ended the same as my grandmother’s family. In the event that one day someone should ever doubt the veracity of these accounts, I take the liberty of sharing something that is also deeply personal and connected to my own family in Kanczuga, and the recount below. In the early 1990s, I became president of the First Kanczuger Society, a Landsmannschaft (welfare and cultural associations for Jews from cities, towns and villages throughout Europe and Russia established to provide kinship and support for émigrés, survivors and their descendents) established by my great-grandfather, Shalom Yakov Birnbach, in 1901. In the course of meeting several of the members who were born in Kanczuga and who remembered my family, I got to know Benny Shanzer (Yankele Kelstecher*). Benny shared with me that when my father came to the US, Benny got him his first job. And Benny also remembered my great-grandmother, Dreizel Hamel Birnbach, who he credited with saving his life. As the Jews of Kanczuga were being rounded up to be murdered, Dreizel turned to Yankele and said, “You’re too young.” Yankele knew that meant they were going to be murdered and used this as the impetus to escape, and survive, as is recounted just in passing below. I have never been to Kanczuga and can only imagine what life was like there before 1939. My sense is that just as in any community there were rivalries and differences within the community, yet there was nevertheless a great sense of community. This sense of community was what motivated my great-grandmother to inspire Yankele to save himself. It is what brought Yankele, Bernie and Yehuda to come back to Kanczuga in April 1945 to bury the seven Jews murdered in a pogrom after the War ended and to protect the survivors. It is what made it second nature for Benny to help find a job for the grandson of Dreizel who saved his life when he arrived in the US as a new immigrant himself. While this week we mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, my relatives who were murdered, with their neighbors witnessing it all standing by as spectators, on a hill on the outskirts of Kanczuga never made it to Auschwitz. I remember my great-grandparents, Shalom Yakov and Dreizel Birnbach, their children, sons and daughters in law, siblings, cousins and grandchildren who were murdered in a hastily dug ditch in the summer of 1942. I also remember the relatives on my grandfather’s side whose names are not all known but whose lives must be remembered nonetheless. While the account below is not about them, their lives were lived alongside those who are mentioned, as were their lives taken from them in exactly the same way. May we, and the generations that follow, always remember to never forget. Hidden – Fay Walker and Leo Rosen Prologue 1942 (http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3522.htm) We were hidden in the countryside by the time the war flooded the streets of tiny Kanczuga, until the screams and bursts of gunfire were as familiar as the cries of the peddlers hawking their wares in the rynek, the town’s main marketplace. More than a hundred of our people were executed at point blank range in front of the Brill’s house. Then early one morning, two young SS men, ably aided by the Polish police, rounded up the hundreds of Jews who had not managed to hide themselves in time. The officers deposited then in the main square, where they stood in shocked silence, some of them still in nightclothes, shivering in the sparkling dawn. Now the police herded their prisoners past the jeering crowd and in to the synagogue. Our people struggled to stare straight ahead, but, as they trudged the dusty streets, they found themselves peering into the faces they had known all their lives, into the flat features and pale eyes of their closest neighbors, empty and cold as death. Kanczuga‘s newest synagogue was a good quarter mile from the Jewish cemetery on the edge of town. It was not quite complicated, but already it was the pride of our community, a spacious sanctuary large enough to seat several hundred people. That Shabbos, every inch of the shul was filled for the first time. Yet it was eerily quiet, the low murmurs punctuated only by the occasional barking if a policeman. Our family, apart from the two in hiding, filled the floor by the eastern wall. Tata’s brother David sat with his wife and three of their five children, Aron, Runie, and little Golda, named after our grandmother. The other two children had been on vacation with their mother’s parents and had already been captured and sent to Siberia. Wordless and watchful, our Tata fingered a pocket of his long, black coat and stroked his beard. Beside him, Mamche, her face raw from weeping, rested a delicate hand on one of my sisters’ shoulders. Now and then she whispered to little Tunia, who was serious even in the best of times. The child’s face, olive-skinned as a Gypsy’s, glistened with tears. Pretty Senia, Aryan-blond and almost a teenager, seemed out of place in this group of frightened Jews. She scanned the wan faces, searching for friends from school. With so many bodies huddled together, the room was close with the odor of human flesh. People slept standing, straight as sentries; others twisted into unnatural positions on the floor. At some point, rain tapped a somber staccato on the roof and windows. A poor tradesman, reverential and cowering, broke off from the crowd to consult with Tata. “Do you think they’ll deport us instead of killing us? Maybe send us away and spare our lives, God willing?” Our taciturn father shrugged and shook his head. “Who is to say?” he asked. “I have heard that the families who didn’t come to the square to be picked up were shot in their homes. We can only wait and put our faith in God. God will provide for us. God has never forsaken us.” Like everyone else, my parents had come to the shul without packing a bag. But my best friend, Bruchcia Laufer, whose family had been temporarily spared because they were engineers still useful to the Reich, visited every day with supplies. That Friday morning, she brought two white Shabbos candles. The crowded room was hushed now, as Mamche lit the trembling flames. For a moment, her face was illuminated, as if from within. When she said the bracha, her shimmering soprano could scarcely be heard, so quickly did it make its way to God. Blessed are You, oh Lord our God, King of the Universe, who commands us to light the Sabbath candles. Shabbos morning arrived warm and bright, but the synagogue was musky with fear. Several men began to daven, and Tata joined them in prayer, swaying back and forth to the familiar chants. Mamche, as a woman forbidden to pray with the men, hummed the wailing nigunim under her breath, her voice sweet and smooth as her homemade jam, her pitch never wavering. The families were still praying when the police ordered them to leave their families and trek the short distance up the hill to the cemetery. Mamche gripped the girls harder, her fingers digging so deeply into their flesh that they squirmed, but they did not break away. Our father, never a demonstrative man, reached for our mother’s hand. The gesture was so unexpected that she met his eyes with a smile. Then the butt of an unseen rifle knocked Tata squarely between the shoulder blades, and he flinched and moved on without speaking. They traveled a short distance in wagons. A boy named Yankele Kelstecher jumped out of his wagon and disappeared into the woods before the policemen could fire.(*) Then the men were ordered out of the wagons. Perhaps the thought of Yankele gave the men strength as they climbed in a thin, halting line along the muddy path that wove through a cornfield. They passed a scarecrow, mocking in unfettered repose. At the crest of the hill was the tree-lined cemetery, its tombstones swathed in even rows of shrubbery. As if on command, the men paused to catch their breaths and to wipe their brows. They gazed out over the crest of the hill to the patchwork of fields below. For a moment, they forgot their terror and shook their heads at the lush landscape. It could not be helped; they loved this country. A straight-backed officer handed out shovels and told them to dig. “Keep digging,” he said. “We’ll tell you when you’re finished.” Most of the men were spindly and weak, with soft palms more used to the Hebrew siddur than to the spade. “Dig, keep digging! Thought you could get away with something, eh? Thought you could hide from us, you filthy Jews?” When at last they were allowed to stop, the men stood in silence beside the freshly dug earth. Their faces slick with tears and sweat, they stared at the raised rifles in astonishment. At eyes opaque as marbles, that didn’t look back. Then they saw the other eyes, those of their neighbors, the customers in their shops, the people to whom they had just last week sold a loaf of bread, who gave them a good price on chickens and eggs. The goyim stood or sat on their haunches in unruly rows alongside the policemen. Whole families, with baskets of cheese and bread and homemade wine, little ones scurrying along the fringes of the crowd, hunting down field mice. The chattering spectators were in an edgy, festive mood, the women’s heads bobbing in their colorful scarves. “Zyd!” they cried. “Jew! Out with the Jews!” The policemen raised their rifles. One hundred hearts were broken before a single shot was fired. When it was over, the audience applauded and cheered. The next day, the sunlight was so fierce that the women shielded their eyes when they were led outside. They climbed through the tall grass directly to the pit, as if they had done so many times before, their children sobbing at their skirts. A fetid smell they did not recognize reached their nostrils, and they covered their faces in horror. When the policemen loaded their rifles, Senia clutched Mamche’s waist. “I don’t want to die!” she cried. “The sun is shining so brightly, and I am so young, Mamche. I want to grow up in this beautiful world.” For the first time in Senia’s life, our Mamche could do nothing to help. She could not hold her any closer; she could not love her any more. One policeman who witnessed this scene was so moved that, later, he would recall Senia’s words to the Kwasniaks, who had worked for us back in town. Then a bullet shattered our little sister’s face, and she collapsed at Mamche’s feet, spraying blood in her new white shoes. Next, Tunia dropped onto Senia, her breath a shallow purr. Even before the third shot was fired, our mother fell on them both, trying to protect what was no longer hers. Beside the gunmen, the onlookers, some of whom had tied handkerchiefs over their noses to stave off the scent, clapped and shouted their approval. A burst of laughter skimmed the crowd. Neighbors clapped each other on the back, not quite meeting each other’s gaze.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

The Holy See should take a better look.

To the Editor, If it were not so sad it would be funny with the Vatican releasing a document blaming Israel “occupying” land as the reason for driving Christians out of the Middle East. Let me try to understand this; the Vatican is planning to discuss the plight of Christians in the Middle East in October and this document represents the outline for these discussions. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3837018,00.html Having just spent a day with members of Israel’s Christian minority, hearing their stories of “jihad” against them by their Moslem neighbors, including stories of forced marriages of Christian women to Moslem men, Moslems harassing and threatening the Christians, an assault against the Christian mayor of Nazareth, multi-million dollar foreign Islamic investments “perseverance funds” to buy out Christians from their homes and businesses (I guess that they forgot they are supposed to be boycotting Israel), unilateral destruction of ancient archeological sites of historic significance to Judaism and early Christianity in an attempt to erase our respective connection from the Land, “conquering” of private Christian schools by Moslem students that relegates Christian students to public schools where they are threatened, boycotts of Christian owned businesses by their Moslem neighbors, and many other allegations that are too vast to list, it’s a wonder what planet the Vatican authors live on that a Jewish Israeli can understand the real threat to Christians in the Middle East that the Vatican can’t. Or, doesn’t want to. I wonder how my friend “Sami” would respond to the Vatican on this, a Lebanese Christian who welcomed Israel’s invasion to eliminate the PLO in 1982 but fled his home and homeland afterward because of the people who “stole” his home and business and “ruined” his life. Who were the thieves that ruined his life? Israel? No, Hizbullah. The Vatican would be well off to spend a day like I did and getting to know the worries and fears of their co-religionists before making stupid and incorrect, not to mention borderline anti-Semitic allegations. Placing blame on Israel for the plight of Christians in the Middle East is about as honest as saying Pope Pius saved millions of Jews during the Holocaust. When issuing documents, let the Vatican find some proof in their archives that disproves that he was no saint in this regard. And while they’re looking, perhaps they can return some of the loot from our Temple that the Romans destroyed 1960 years ago, lest they be accidental accomplices in erasing the Jewish, and Christian, roots of the Land of Israel. If the Vatican does not want to ask the Christians themselves, just take a look at the former Christian cities of Nazareth and Bethlehem. Churches are overshadowed by Mosques whose green illuminated minarets dominate the sky line like an Islamic game of connect the dots. But the Vatican is who needs to be connecting the dots to see the true picture that it is an intolerant stream of Islam that is the guilty party for the plight of the Christians here. Any Vatican discussion of the plight of Christians in the Middle East that is not grounded in reality will relegate the remaining Christians living here as an endangered species to extinction. The Holy See should take a better look. Jonathan Feldstein http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com

Darkness at the End of the Tunnel

Scarcely a year after the end of Israel’s military operation in Gaza to stop the daily barrage of missiles and rockets fired at Israeli communities by the thousands, a new war is raging involving the Palestinians and Gaza. But this time it’s a war of religious edicts (fatwas) between Palestinian factions that seek to ban and, conversely, justify, the digging and operating of smuggling tunnels under Gaza’s border with Egypt. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1263147877009 This is just another chapter in the saga of the network of smuggling tunnels that have become a big and profitable business in Gaza, one that even the Hamas leadership “lisences,” taxes, and from which it profits. As a result, other problems have arisen relating to the tunnels, including groups calling upon Hamas to guarantee workers rights for those who dig and operate the tunnels. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256799082916&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull It seems that tunnel business can be dangerous and risky. What’s next, a Gaza Tunnel Diggers and Workers Local 101 union complete with a pension, health benefits and of course a hefty life insurance (martyr’s) policy? Maybe the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey should step in to offer expertise in management, maintenance, and an easy, efficient electronic toll collecting system with each worker wearing a transmitter around his neck to clock each time he passes a toll collection point and registering what his toll is at the end of the day. Regrettably, as much as these incidents expose a darker side of the tunnel digging industry, in no case – either the fatwas for or against the tunnels, or those brazen enough to fault Hamas for sanctioning the tunnels to begin with, yet not providing for the safety of the workers – none on the Palestinian side have come out and just said it’s wrong to use these tunnels for smuggling, especially of weapons, drugs, and women for prostitution. Until recently Egypt, whose territorial integrity has been violated daily by the tunnel operators and illegal traffic, commerce, and overt smuggling, didn’t say a peep. I could even make the case that Gaza’s residents may in fact be stuck between a tunnel and a hard place, and may be legitimately upset that Israel closes its border with Gaza to prevent the delivery of all but the most basic humanitarian needs. (This does not mitigate the fact that Israel fosters the shipment of literally tons of humanitarian supplies that do cross into Gaza all the time, or the regular flow of Palestinian patients from Gaza into Israel to be treated at Israeli hospitals.) But the proclivity to blame Israel for any Gaza problems raises two questions to which I have just not seen a good answer. If the humanitarian situation is indeed so bad there, why would Hamas allow the smuggling of drugs, weapons and prostitutes, as well as suitcases of cash and other wanted criminals and terrorists? Other than the inherent vice associated with these things that presumably contradict Islamic law, if the tunnels are indeed necessary to avert a humanitarian crisis, shouldn’t every tunnel be used exclusively to solve the humanitarian needs of their population? But of course, that would mean Hamas changing its MO and actually caring about the well being of the population under its iron clad extremist grip. Oh, and it would mean giving up its cynical blaming of Israel for all their problems, even when they fabricate a situation that is based on one lie building the foundation for the next. And whether the humanitarian situation is so bad or not, why is it Israel’s responsibility to open the borders to importing of any supplies into Gaza, especially when doing so often is a catalyst for terrorist attacks on the very convoys of food and other supplies that are being brought across. Of course this is not to mention the fact that Hamas, and Gaza especially under Hamas’ control, is a hostile enemy entity which seeks to terrorize and ultimately destroy Israel. Why must Israel prop that up and support it at all, let alone be considered the sole responsible party? Golda Meir once said that Israel and the Arabs will only have peace when the Arabs care more about the lives of their children more than they care about killing ours. Allow me a modern interpretation. Israel will only have peace, and the Palestinians under Hamas’ grip will only truly have freedom and prosperity, when the tunnels they dig have light and not darkness coming in from both sides, and the contents of goods and traffic through these tunnels are for the welfare of their own population, not to harm or delegitimize Israel’s. If the tunnels are indeed necessary, let them be used exclusively for good. If the world truly cares about the plight of the Palestinians in general, and those in Gaza in particular, let it clamp down to prevent the Hamas terrorist warlords who control Gaza from using the suffering of the residents of Gaza as an excuse for continued smuggling of weapons, drugs and human beings which are only associated with terror, vice, and crime. And let the people of Gaza end the fatwa wars, take control of their destiny by forcing Hamas out, and let them assert that the tunnel business and Hamas itself are bad for their well being. To borrow a phrase from the 1960s, let the world in general, and Palestinians in particular affirm that, “Smuggling and illicit tunnels are not healthy for Palestinians and other living things.”