How I Learned to Love the Wall
- Gilad Elbom
- | 30 Jan 2008
- | 43 comments
Journal of the mental environment
“Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
Photo: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic
They’re building a wall in Israel. A new wall: 25 feet high, 300 miles long, electric fencing, trenches, access roads for armored patrol vehicles, electronic fence sensors, electronic ground sensors, thermal imaging equipment, video cameras, unmanned aerial vehicles, sniper towers, barbed wire, razor wire, landmines.
And if you think I’m against it, you’re wrong. I think it’s a good idea. Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of this new wall is not to prevent Arab terrorists from sneaking into the forbidden Jewish zones. Rather than a security barrier, the wall functions as a curtain, a dividing screen that separates the ugly from the beautiful.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the Arabs should not enjoy basic human rights. I’m not saying they should be denied access to food, medical care, transportation, education, employment, or water. I’m not saying they’re not human beings. All I’m saying is we don’t want to be forced to look at them every day. They’re not visually pleasing, to use a crass understatement. We came to Israel to build a beautiful country, to inherit our old-new land, the land of milk and honey, lavish landscapes, manly men, and gorgeous girls – not a land populated by unkempt, unclean, unshaven slobs.
Not that they need to be banished. Not that they have to die. We just don’t want to see them, that’s all. Extreme poverty produces extreme hideousness, and extreme hideousness demands an appropriate concealing device. The wall is not imprisonment. It’s not incarceration. It’s an aesthetic quarantine.
Israel is a modern miracle. A young, sexy, bubbly nation in the heart of the filth and darkness of the Arab world. It seems only right that half the people who live in this beautiful democracy should be excluded from participating in it: the ugly half. For 50 years they’ve been cleaning toilets, washing dishes, sweeping streets, scrubbing floors. Which is fine, if that’s what you want to do. But at the end of the day, please be kind enough to take a shower. We’re talking basic social behavior here, elementary consideration for other human beings. And if you have no money to buy soap, or if you have no running water at home, or if your home has been demolished, we can offer you all the sympathy in the world, but please don’t expect us to be eager to look at you. And the wall, in spite of the hypocritical objection of the European community, in spite of the anti-Semitic threats of the International Court, in spite of the ungrateful, backstabbing, double-crossing propaganda of a self-hating minority that condemns it as a crime, does the job. It keeps the Arabs out of sight.
The construction of the wall, therefore, should not only continue according to plan, regardless of the screams and shouts of the pseudo-compassionate world, but also expand. We should put up more walls, walls to hide away the sick, the tired, the obese, the elderly, the gentiles. Our Jewish concrete slabs are perfectly impenetrable, harder than metal, stronger than steel, mightier than any moral value. Just like our 2,000-year-old Wailing Wall, this new one is not temporary. It’s not reversible. It’s here to stay. The nations of the world can yell and protest all they want, but they would need a lot more than a bunch of trumpets to knock this one down.
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Comments
Good fences make good neighbors.
I hope this is not real ...
If this guy was a slightly better satirist he would've suggested we eat Arab children - see Irish history. And oh yeah! what the hell does honest with your greed mean?? James buddy you're a straight-up racist. Have fun with it. x o.
man will always fight its in our nature, religion is to blame, money and greed. it will never end. these people will fight over this piece of land until one side is massacred, simple. enjoy.
LOL... Great satire. It reminds me of that scene in American Psycho when Christian Bale tells the unnamed homeless man that he smells before killing him.
I just want to point out to other readers that there are many Jewish Israelis that are left out of this young, sexy, bubbly nation, by choice or not. That's why Israel desperately needs the conflict to continue, to maintain solidarity in its Jewish population.
Since the creation of the wall the suicide attacks in Israel have dropped dramatically, but of course since Jews are trying to protect themselves from terrorists, Mr. Elbom claims it is because of beauty. Maybe it is; perhaps one thinks it is beautiful to be able to walk down Ben Yehuda Street without having to worry about them or their children dying. I think that is beautiful, but that is just me...
If he could be at least, less ignorant, he would know that the adjective antisemitic comprehends both arabs and jews...but ohhh, he is, after all, a zionist, so abandon any hope for reasoning.
Israel is everything but sexy. It's an ugly terror state in the middle of an great Islamic civilization. And people like you tell us that Hitler wasn't wrong. I hope to see free Palestia any time soon!
Sad, very sad to read such things. This is same propaganda Hitler used agaist the Jews when he was
talking about dirty Jews etc. We supported you and delivered you. Today you are using the same things with Palestinians and you are expecting us to support you?
We are headed down a dark slippery slope. Internet, TV, shopping. What else could one want. There is no need to struggle. Survival is a thing of the past. We are being lead astray. The system is taking us down. The question is how do you want to go?
In theory, the sooner Israel disengages from the West Bak and Gaza and give the Palestinians the lifeless dirt they seem to kill for, the quicker all this criticism over the wall will subside. But then EVERYONE wants their shit both ways.
I realize that this is satire, but people reading this have actually implied that they support this. To those people, I say that when you deny utilities, roads, civil rights, and housing to a people based on race and religion, you have to expect retaliation, even in its most terrible forms. If you want to be safe from the palestinians, maybe you should move back to preArab Isreali war borders, and stop murdering thousands of people every year because the bible promises you the land that they live on.
Its also cute how you confuse Zionism with Judaism
fortunately, considering where this article is posted you realize that it is satire. Unfortunately, you could read the same article in a major Israeli newspaper and most would consider it serious.
30 000 children starve to death every day, but this wall is what causes Adbusters to lose sleep at night. It's one thing to have some sort of logical criticism of Israel, but this is just petty demonization devoid of any substance... at all.
I just saw a news article that said: First suicide bombing in Israel in year. This is the kind of thing Adbusters wants to see more of. They hate this sexy, bubbly nation, and if they were the moral, they would mention something about security in this sarcastic piece about the wall. And I say that as an Arab.
The interesting thing about effective satire is that there's always a portion of the audience that actually believes it to be genuine. Case in point: Stephen Colbert.
Hiding it isn't removing it, it is and will always be there.
Why should Israel be criticised for protecting itself from neighbours who openly declare their desire of complete destruction of Israel. The Palestinians have done nothing to warrant a more civil approach. They continue to behave as animals, and are treated as such.
why can't they build a beautiful wall and turn it into a tourist site? Or even a glass bomb proof section so that they can smile at each other while holding babies and sitting on donkeys?
How many Qassam rockets have been fired at civilian communities again? Including kibbutzim, which, by nature, are anti-military?
suicide bombings are down 85% since the wall was built.
The problem with satire is that if you do not know the thing from your own experience you will not understand it completely. The problem with people who write satire that is published for people who don't know the subject from their personal experience, is that they make you wonder if this is their aim to begin with: To have other people take the satire as is.
Not that I completely disagree with Gilad but I would wonder about weather he has gotten his aim or has he created more problems and more misunderstanding?
Buddha to be Israel, and the sick to be Hezbollah, and the old to be Egypt, and the poor to be Palestine; and then account for his transition to an ascetic life. We can assume Israel will leave its palace grown from the farms of purchased land, to beg in the streets which would be representative of the international community. The only difference is there is no community for Israel outside of Israel.
Remind me in fifty years after a persecution complex sets in with Palestinians for being abandoned by Jordan, refused by Syria and Lebanon, and pushed into refugee camps after fleeing Israel by Egypt who refused them any entry and ask why by then they will have taken what they can and given nothing back. Why after centuries of abuse and discrimination the Jewish people did the same? You sit on someone's chest for long enough and they will fight tooth and nail for their own air.
WHAT! this is the best example of the 'out of sight out of mind' policy ive ever read. Is it real? Sure lets build a wall 25 feet high, 300 miles long, electric fencing, trenches, access roads for armored patrol vehicles, electronic fence sensors, electronic ground sensors, thermal imaging equipment, video cameras, unmanned aerial vehicles, sniper towers, barbed wire, razor wire, landmines and say its just there so we dont have to SEE THEM!
I used to believe once that, suffering unspeakable horrors would instill wisdom in the hearts of men. It seems those same men are not beneath inflicting those same horrors on others. Is it a kind of retribution? Or is it simply filthy?
Yes, it's supposed to be ironic. Badly written crap. But not as offensive as it seems to be.
Your frequent theme of antisemitism e.g.
neocon conspiracies is disturbing.
clearly everyone here has a solid grasp of sarcasm.
First.. your a majority of light skinned Caucasian people who are antiSemitic. Palestine people are the Semites. be proud and honest of your success but let the world know who you are! Colonists, who have succeeded. Your organization religion is strong... but your morals are questioned and your actions only prove stereotypes. be proud of what you are... and honest with your greed.