This War is Unwinnable

[bluesoul]

By DEB REICH

Israelis cannot prevail over Palestinians any more than Palestinians can prevail over Israelis. Isn't this obvious by now? There is not going to be a winner here until everyone is dead, and that would be a hollow victory indeed. But take heart: There is a real alternative and, since we Semites (Arabs and Jews) are clever people, we should have thought of it long since.

We can go ahead and declare the Palestinian-Israeli contest a tie: Game over! Score: Tied, one all. One moral victory for each side; one "I've proved my point" for each side; one "I belong to this land and will never give it up" for each side. One "My way of battling is more noble than yours" for each side. One "We will never kneel" for each side. And so forth.

A tie (as in, the game is tied) in Hebrew is "teko." That's not hard; go ahead and say it aloud: TEKO (rhymes with "METro"). The valiant struggle to subjugate Palestinians to the will of another people claiming ancestral rights to this land, and engaged in a relentless process of acquiring more and more of it by force of arms, is now over, because the Palestinian people will never be subjugated and they are determined to be free. We declare the outcome TEKO.

In Arabic, the word for a tie is "ta3adol" (pronounced "ta'adol," more or less; the numeral 3 stands for the Arabic letter "ayin"). That's not hard either; go ahead and say it aloud: TA3ADOL (rhymes with "pa- pa-ROLL"). The valiant struggle to roll back the tide of the modern Jewish national renaissance - a renaissance pursued with increasing desperation in the wake of the Nazi catastrophe, but at the cost of incalculable suffering and displacement of the other people living on this land - is now over, because the Jewish national renaissance cannot be rolled back. We declare the outcome TA3ADOL.

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http://www.counterpunch.org/reich01092004.html