From the Palestinian musical video, 'The Roof of the Bus Goes Flying'
The announcement of my new book* has already triggered many reactions both positive and negative. The former are pleasing because there were many more of them than I expected; the latter ones were expected and not surprising. One of the outraged readers wrote: “Propaganda. And whose country are Jews occupying?” I was wondering whether to ignore it or to answer, because the question itself is interesting. My first impulse was to throw it into a waste bin, but later I started to think what I would answer if I thought that the reader was honestly expecting an answer.
There never was a State of Palestine, at least no historians or geographers have ever heard of such a state. The territory called Palestine is a territory of ancient Israel, renamed by the Romans in the second half of the second century of the Common Era. In modern times, after World War II, it appears as a “Palestine Mandate”, designated by the decision of the League of Nations for the “Jewish National Home”. The decision was to be implemented by Britain. The British were in no hurry with the implementation and the Palestine Mandate survived World War II, while the British efforts to create a “Jewish National Home” in the mandate entrusted to them resulted in limiting the Jewish immigration both before and during the War as well as allowing a practically unlimited influx of Arab immigrants.
Anyway, after the collapse of ancient Israel this Palestine was never a seat of any state. First it was a Roman colony, then Byzantine, then Arabs came who were for a short time supplanted by Crusaders, and when the Arabs returned Palestine was a part of Greater Syria. When the Ottoman Empire came, Palestine became a Turkish colony as a part of the province of Syria. The answer to the question: “Whose state are Jews occupying?” is more complicated than the reader coming from the organization “Free Palestine” would be willing to admit.
I don’t know how this reader himself answers the question “Whose state are Jews occupying?” Let’s go back to modern history, i.e. to the Palestine Mandate. Let’s start with two other mandates established simultaneously with the Palestine Mandate. The Iraqi Mandate was also entrusted to the British, but here the League of Nations’ decision was implemented more efficiently. In 1921 a monarchy was established with far-reaching autonomy; in 1932 Iraq gained independence and the mandate ended. Two other provinces of the former Ottoman Empire were given to France as mandates. Lebanon got its autonomy quite quickly and in 1943 gained full independence. The Syria Mandate turned out to be more troublesome and Syria became independent only in 1945. (Both in Iraq and in Syria support for Nazi Germany was huge, but there was no denazification, and nobody prosecuted Nazi criminals who found shelter there.)
Looking further for an answer to the question of whose country Jews are occupying, we have to return to the Palestine Mandate. And so, Jews are not occupying Turkey, though Palestine was Turkish, they are not occupying Palestine because no state of Palestine ever existed, they are not occupying any territory assigned to Arabs by the League of Nations. Palestine as a geographic area is ancient Israel, that is, today’s Israel and today’s Jordan. Such also were the borders of the Palestine Mandate.
Since in the territory assigned to be a “Jewish National Home” (that is, in the territory of the Palestine Mandate), there were many Arabs and a substantial majority of them were under the influence of Nazi and Islamist propaganda (and peaceful Arabs were terrorized by those compatriots), the British decided on a two-state solution. The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan was created: that is, a home for Palestinian Arabs. Transjordan gained full independence and there was nothing to stop the creation of a Jewish home on the remaining less than 30 per cent of Palestine Mandate. The decision of the League of Nations empowered the British to make such decision. The Jews didn’t protest—on the contrary, they thought it was the right decision. It was the Arabs who protested.
Today’s pro-Palestine activists love four maps of “Palestine” limited to today’s Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where green areas show the places where Arabs live and white where Jews live. On these maps Jordan is no longer “Palestine”. (The first map is from 1946, the year Jordan gained independence, but admitting that Jordan is a state for Palestinian Arabs is out of the question.)
There was no League of Nations in 1946, because it was supplanted by the United Nations. Many members of this new organization protested against carrying out the League of Nations’ decision to create a “Jewish National Home” on less than 30 per cent of the territory designated for this purpose. The U.N. passed a resolution (resolutions are recommendations and not legally binding decisions) about the further reduction of the “Jewish National Home”, now limited to three ridiculous triangles and about the creation on the Palestine Mandate territory of the a second state for Palestinian Arabs. Palestinian Jews agreed, but Arab countries rejected the proposal. Egypt was the main opponent and especially the Muslim Brotherhood, which had its branches in all Arab states including the (already severely cut down) Palestinian Mandate.
The British didn’t intend to impose anything by force (except restrictions on Jewish immigration), while Jews presented armed resistance to growing Arab terror and to the British (who interned Jews escaping from Europe and from Arab countries, and who more and more violently opposed the creation of the Jewish state). In May 1948 the British folded up their flag and left. The Jews announced their independence and the same day five Arab armies invaded the “Jewish National Home”. (The Egyptian army was armed by the British and had help from experienced SS officers, the Syrian army was armed by the French and had expert help from Germans as well, the Jordan army was armed and commanded by the British; the Iraqi and Saudi units were smaller.) The attack by the Jordanian army was most effective and it occupied Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, i.e. territory later called the West Bank. They had no intention of creating a second state for Palestinian Arabs there. The captured territories were immediately annexed to Jordan.
Granted, nobody except the British recognized Jordanian sovereignty over the “West Bank” but – not really correctly – you could argue that Israel is occupying Jordanian territory. (Probably the activist from “Free Palestine” who commented on my book didn’t mean that.)
Trying to learn what he could have meant, I took a look at the article by another activist of this organization, Ms Wioletta Wilk-Reguła. The author assures us that she is right and that Palestine must be free. This article is a polemic with Tomasz Lis [a prominent Polish journalist] who previously accused her of spreading Hamas propaganda without mentioning Hamas. The activist of “Free Palestine” is outraged by this insinuation and states categorically that she does not support Hamas, that she is a supporter of a free and independent Palestine. So, where is Palestine and who is enslaving it? This activist is not dealing with geography; we can only guess that she means mainly Judea and Samaria. This time, however, she mentions Hamas and dissociates herself from it. She writes about enigmatic Palestinians. No, not Palestinians living in Jordan and deprived of their right by their rulers, not Palestinians living in Syria, Lebanon and other Arab countries who are deprived of their rights to an even greater degree. A “Palestine” must be free, and that may mean the Palestinian Authority, which has as its emblem a map of Israel and the West Bank covered with Palestinian flag. The activist does not mention that the Palestinian Authority refuses to negotiate for peace, that it refuses to implement the Oslo Accords, that only a bit less energetically than Hamas it incites its people to terror, nor that this occupied autonomy has its own security force, its press, courts, prisons, parliament and president. The author doesn’t protest when her organization demonstrates with the slogan “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea”. She is only enraged that somebody could suspect her of propagating Hamas’s slogans.
Outrage is also provoked by reminding people that Israel agrees to the second Palestinian state on the territory of the former Palestine Mandate with conditions that this state will recognize Israel as a Jewish state, will be demilitarized, and will agree to some border corrections as well as giving up the right of return for descendants of Palestinian refugees. It can be claimed that these are exorbitant conditions or that this is just a refusal to commit suicide. It doesn’t seem, however, that the “Free Palestine” activist was willing to discuss the problem of where Palestine is, nor the problem of whether two Palestinian states in Palestine would be willing to live in peace with Israel, or whether it is possible to talk about it in a different manner without the claim that Jews are to blame for everything. Ms Wilk-Reguła concludes her article with the words:
„...if Prime Minister Netanyahu, so vehement in his opinions on the Palestinian question, had more good will, he would understand that the carrot works better than the stick. And where there is no carrot, people look for it everywhere, even in Hamas”.
And so everything became confused and not only did I not manage to learn whose state the Jews are occupying, but to make matters worse I stopped understanding where Palestine is and what its territory is.
The announcement of my new book also caused Dr. Paweł J. Dąbrowski from the Holistic Institute of Negotiations and Enterprising to voice his protest. This author was outraged by my statement that “the world consistently demands proportionality – the same number of Jews should be killed as people who try to kill them”. He writes that he reads a lot but he has never seen any such demand, he wants to get a link showing it, and he sends a link to his own article with the title Nie będziemy ginąć za Izrael [We are not going to die for Israel]. I opened the link and read, among other things:
It’s difficult to accept the claim about “the extensive bombardment of Israel by Hamas” when there are only two or three victims, and about “the carefully aimed, limited, and surgically precise strikes by the ADF” (sic!), when there are tens and hundreds of civilian victims. But it is also impossible to accept Hamas’s crocodile tears when after the attack of the “defenseless” crowd on the separation barrier or at checkpoints civilians are killed… What did they think? Should Israeli soldiers allow themselves to be battered to death by stones???
Balanced and objective. This author uses the word “Hamas” and even recognizes the soldiers’ right to self-defense; he just has grievances about the lack of proportionality. What “extensive bombardment” when only a few Jews are killed? The holistic approach of this expert does not suggest to him that shooting thousands of rockets at towns in another country might be improper; he is only worried about the effectiveness – these rockets do so little damage. This lament over the ineffectiveness of Palestinian peace efforts can be heard in the U.N. and in the European Union Parliament, in the American State Department and on university campuses. Mr. Dąbrowski didn’t need to ask for a link to support my statement. He gave it himself.
Of course, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah care not only about killing Jews, they also want many victims among their own population. They are using hospitals and schools and residential buildings as both caches for arms and ammunition and as launching pads for military operations. In short, these organizations are committing both the war crime of shooting at the civilian population of a neighboring country and the war crime of using its own population as a human shield. These crimes are willingly forgiven or shrugged off with a delicate admonition, disproportionate to the denunciation of Israel’s crime of defending the lives of its own citizens. There is method in the madness of Abbas’s actions, but even more astounding is the effectiveness of Hamas’s methods. Hamas seem to know that it can count on the tacit support of the world for its actions. How to describe the goal of these actions? Well, let’s quote Palestinian artists who can express it in the best way. I suggest watching the Palestinian musical “The Roof of the Bus Goes Flying”. (Since the film is in Arabic, despite its artistic value I’m first giving the transcript and later the film itself, which really is worth watching.)
'The Roof of the Bus Goes Flying' - Music Video Glorifies Palestinian Bus Bombings
A music video titled "The Roof of the Bus Goes Flying" was posted on the Internet on February 7. Dancing against the backdrop of a burnt-out Israeli bus, the singers of the Al-Wa'ed Band praise Hamas terrorist mastermind Yahya Ayyash with the words "You did not let a single bus drive through a neighborhood without having chunks of the bus and body parts go flying," and call on "bearers of good tidings" to "wrap the explosive belt around their waists." The song includes lyrics such as: "We want the dead to fill the streets and the blood to intensify the pain," and "make the fire engulf them, turn them into body parts, roast them."
The following are excerpts:
"The Roof of the Bus Goes Flying" Al-Wa'ed Band for Islamic Art
"Commander Yahya Ayyash"
Image of Yahya Ayyash "the engineer", mastermind behind suicide bombings in the 1990s
Singer steps out of a mock-up of a bombed Israeli bus
Be glad, brother Ayyash, for the Compassionate has blessed you, for the explosives you planted in the enemy's body were so alive. You did not let a single bus drive through a neighborhood without having chunks of the bus and body parts go flying.
Oh bearer of good tidings, wrap the explosive belt around your waist. Oh bearer of good tidings, wrap the explosive belt around your waist. The story of the Intifada will only be told when the roof of a bus goes flying.
Singers are seen planning a bus attack
Oh bearer of good tidings, wrap the explosive belt around your waist. The story of the Intifada will only be told when the roof of a bus goes flying.
Oh Martyrdom-seeker, heed the call of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, make the blast of the bomb reach further and further. Make Netanyahu flee in shame, unable to count the number of casualties. Scatter them all over, strike fear among their people. Show no mercy to their settlers. Dispatch them to Hell. Nothing awaits them but the grave.
Oh martyrdom-seeker, the Al-Aqsa Mosque has called: Oh son, come to martyrdom! Blow yourself up, oh you with strong resolve. We will defend the soil of the pure Al-Aqsa.
Potential bus bomber is seen reading a book and embracing a young boy
Oh bearer of good tidings, wrap the explosive belt around your waist. The story of the Intifada will only be told when the roof of a bus goes flying. Oh bearer of good tidings, wrap the explosive belt around your waist. The story of the Intifada will only be told when the roof of a bus goes flying.
Singers dance the debke
"Jews" are waiting for a bus to come, along with the potential bus bomber
Oh Martyrdom-seeker, make them cry. Make the fire engulf them. Turn them into body parts, roast them, bringing joy to the hearts of the steadfast people.
The "Jews" board an "Israeli" bus
Oh martyrdom-seeker, it is our duty to defend our people. You are the voice of honor within us.
The bomber walks through the isle of the bus
With your explosive belt, we will defend our free women. We want the dead to fill the streets, and the blood to intensify the pain. Make the Zionist withdraw from the wrath of my avenging people.
Oh bearer of good tidings, wrap the explosive belt around your waist. The story of the Intifada will only be told when the roof of a bus goes flying. Oh bearer of good tidings, wrap the explosive belt around your waist. The story of the Intifada will only be told when the roof of a bus goes flying.
Disclose your secrets to the Compassionate. Oh martyrdom-seeker, the Lord has chosen you. Our Prophet Muhammad will be your neighbor. In Paradise, your home has already been built. Step up and take revenge on behalf of your religion. Blow it up – may you be successful. Oh you who wear the explosive belt, your head is held high, when we bring the good tidings.
Oh Martyrdom-seeker, put on your explosive belt, and blow it up. This is your finest hour. How sweet are your bombs and explosives. Blow up the shameless Zionist.
Oh bearer of good tidings, wrap the explosive belt around your waist. The story of the Intifada will only be told when the roof of a bus goes flying. Oh bearer of good tidings, wrap the explosive belt around your waist. The story of the Intifada will only be told when the roof of a bus goes flying.
The bomber pats the explosive belt underneath his jacket
An explosion is heard and the screen goes black
The credits roll over behind the scenes clips of the video's making, while flames are superimposed over the bottom of an image of the mock-up Israeli bus
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My book discusses the threat, the world’s attitude towards Israel, and the growing fascist wave. Those who love Palestinians, when very hard pressed, assure us with a whiff of outrage that we haven’t understood anything, that they don’t love those particular Palestinians, but they love some other Palestinians, those who are oppressed by evil Jews. When Mr. Dąbrowski wrote that I didn’t understand his argument and that I even twisted his words, another reader of the announcement of my book (with the nick Magog) eagerly cheered him to further polemic, and at the suggestion to watch a testimony by a young woman who talked about life under daily rocket fire and about what you feel when just behind your house a group of murderers emerge from a hole in the ground with the intention of shooting everything that moves, he wrote:
A beautiful, moving film about how terrible it is in the wonderful Israel, bombs are falling constantly, terrorists are digging long tunnels almost to our doors and brave Israeli sons are dying in our defense, I cry for every killed Palestinian child and I try to enjoy birds and wonderful music, which I listen to in between falling bombs, and do not forget to visit our wonderful country in the moments it is quiet… Isn’t it wonderful? Mr. Andrzej Koraszewski takes us for idiots and show a link to a film made in a studio by an actress. I’m sending another link, compatible with my opinion that the book is outdated [Mr. Magog claims that Muslim have taken the role of Jews and they are now persecuted, not Jews]: https://pracownia4.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/islamofobia-w-usa-napedzana-jest-przez-kontrolowane-przez-syjonistow-media/#more-9509 [Zionist controlled media fuel Islamophobia in U.S.:a Polish translation of an article by Kevin Barrett published by the Iranian propaganda site, Press TV ] Mr. Dąbrowski, continue your polemic.
Mr. Paweł Dąbrowski does not dissociate himself from this ally. He informs him politely that polemic with me is not worth it.
Normally, we associate furious, murderous anti-Semitism with the far right; the Left is fighting for peace and trying to convince us that it just loves Palestinians. Much was written about this peculiar love of the Left for Palestinians, but if anybody wants a short, coherent account I suggest Open letter to the anti-Israel left written by Julie Nathan.
In my book there is a chapter entitled “Palestine, my love” where I try to draft the history of the Left’s passionate love for “Palestine”. Julie Nathan describes how it looks today. She starts with these words:
We see you, we hear you, day after day, making your ignorant, bigoted and malicious accusations against Jews and Israel. You claim to be speaking for human rights and for justice, but your words and actions betray you. You are haters, liars and bullies.
Julie Nathan is Australian and deals professionally with research on modern anti-Semitism. In her short article she shows a few other pictures of posters, and among them is a slogan, all-too-familiar and no longer evoking any reactions: “Nazism is Zionism, Zionism is Nazism”.
I would like to conclude this letter with words of love from Gaza by recalling these close links between Zionism and Nazism. This story will not convince the reader who asked whose country Jews are occupying, nor Ms Wioletta Wilk-Reguła, nor Mr. Dabrowski, not to mention Magog.
As an atheist I’m not too keen on rabbis, priests, vicars, imams or any other shamans telling us about gods (which doesn’t mean that I do not know wise clerics, great humanists, who can teach me a lot). The story about a certain rabbi is important for understanding the perversity of the slogan “Nazism is Zionism, Zionism is Nazism”.
This rabbi was five years old when he landed in Buchenwald. He was from Piotrków, from a family which through 37 generations in an unbroken line gave rabbis to the town’s Jewish community.
In 1945, at the age eight, Rabbi Lau became the youngest survivor of Buchenwald to be liberated by the Americans. He recounted one of the most powerful stories in his book—the moment of liberation. When the young Lulek saw the American soldiers entering the gates of the camp, he hid behind a pile of corpses, unsure if they were friend or foe. Rabbi Herschel Schacter, the chaplain of the U.S. Third Army, climbed off his jeep to examine the carnage and destruction that the Nazis left behind with their last remaining bullets. Suddenly he caught sight of the boy hiding behind the dead. Shocked to see a sign of life there, let alone a Jewish child, he picked Lulek up and hugged him tightly in a warm embrace, while tears of sadness and joy poured from his eyes.
“How old are you my son,” he asked in Yiddish, from behind his tears.
“What difference does it make how old I am?” Lau responded suspiciously. “Anyway, I’m older than you.”
“Why do you think that you’re older than I am?” Rabbi Schacter asked, now smiling.
“Because you laugh and cry like a child,” Lau replied. “I haven’t laughed for longer than I can remember and I can’t even cry anymore. So which one of us is older?”
The American chaplain warmed the boy and gave him food, but he had to leave and little Lulek stayed with others in the camp on the outskirts of Weimar, the town of Goethe and Schiller, a short distance by foot from the magnificent National Theatre. After the liberation of the camp General Patton gave an order to bring the local population to see the horror with their own eyes. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau for a moment found himself again in the center of attention. In a book published a few years ago he described this moment:
After the liberation of the camp, I stayed in Buchenwald for a while. Buchenwald was in the suburbs of the city of Weimar, the home of Goethe and Schiller. Ironically, the concentration camp was just a ten minute walk from the German national theater, a bastion of German culture. After the liberation, General Patton decided to invite the residents of Weimar to the camp insisting that they view the horrors with their own eyes.
I was wandering around the camp, free and fearless, when I saw the Weimar residents, mostly women and elderly men. Suddenly, a command car stopped suddenly next to me, and a giant American soldier lifted me. Gripping my heels in one hand and my shoulder with the other, he raised me high in the air and shouted in German to the Weimar residents : “Do you see this little boy ? This is who you have been fighting for the past six years. Because of him you started a world war. He is the enemy of national Socialism, the Nazis’ archenemy. A little Polish boy! You murdered his father and mother, and you almost murdered him as well! You followed the Fuhrer- for this? You followed him in blind faith – for this?! ”
Yes, just for this and the hatred returned today, returned with the self-confidence of haters convinced that they are fighting for goodness and justice, that they are defending the oppressed.
Mr. Paweł Dąbrowski, without reading my book, assures me that no book is going to convince him. I know. I didn’t address it to him. I would just like people to know what the greeting “from Gaza with love” means. And for them to know that we understand their assurances that they only want a free Palestine. The whole Palestine. Free world. The whole world. And we know from whom it is supposed to be free.
P.S. For those who would like to listen to a music version of Palestine history I suggest this song:
Z listu T.E. Lawrence’a (znanego jako ”Lawrence z Arabii”) opublikowanego 22 lipca 1920 r. w „Times of London”, przedstawiający sprawę politycznej niepodległości Arabów na Bliskim Wschodzie.
