by Dvir Shreiber, Besheva, translated by Hillel Fendel.
A sad satire on the media emphasis on the sand thrown at Ben-Gvir
Most certainly you have all heard of THE event of the week that took Israel by storm last week, namely, the sand incident of last Friday on a Tel Aviv beach. It began when Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir took his family out on a pre-Sabbath outing to the seashore. A woman there, apparently not a strong nationalist, threw sand on Ben-Gvir, and then ran back into the waves with a feeling of great accomplishment.
However, at that point, as we know, the big bad terrible police came and demanded (!) that she (!!) get out (!!!) of the water (!!!!) and actually arrested her (!!!!!) – even though she's only a little girl 27 years of age with epilepsy and over-developed delusions of grandeur. Social media and propaganda news stations in Israel erupted in fury that the police were acting like the Stasi police of East Germany, like Argentina in the 70's, like Israel during the Disengagement from Gush Katif, and basically we all had one big mud-throwing party.
But while the country was aflame with the bitter fate of the little beach girl, in the Jordan Valley there was another little incident, marginal, really nothing important, which made the headlines for about a minute and a half and was then buried in the sand. It was just a simple case of a Jordanian terrorist who got out of his truck at the Allenby Crossing and shot three Israeli guards to death. Nothing too dramatic, a terrorist attack against Jews in the Land of Israel is pretty routine, nothing to get excited about. In fact, just a week before that there was another Arab Palestinian terrorist attack, and there too, three Jews were murdered. So what? Did it change anything about us? Did it lower the volume of our arguments? Did it cause anyone to stop accusing Bibi of either killing the hostages himself or of asking Sinwar to do it?
The Jordanians, on the other hand, did not take the attack in stride as if it were just another news item. They gave out candies, trampled on Israeli flags, and shot fireworks. And the Jordanian government, that which condemns us with every breath we take, this time didn't do that right away; it rather kept silent for a half-hour, and then condemned us.
Israel, for its part, decided this time not to remain silent: That very evening, Netanyahu announced firmly and unmistakably that from now on, no government minister would visit the Temple Mount without coordinating beforehand with him, in order not to offend Jordanian sensibilities. This was a logical approach; it is inconceivable that they would attack us and we would simply ignore it and not apologize to them.
The Bridge of Blood
The Jordanian attack and Netanyahu's quick announcement reminded me of what happened to me in Elul 1996, exactly 28 years ago, when I was a young reservist guarding the Adam Bridge between Israel and Jordan (50 kilometers north of the Allenby Crossing). It was a sleepy place, with maybe one old truck passing through every hour. My job was to make sure no one snuck across the bridge into Israel, and also to drink a lot so as not to evaporate in the illogical Jordan Valley heat.
One morning I look up and see an armed Jordanian officer walking along the bridge towards our side. I yelled at him in Arabic to stop. He didn't. When he reached the middle of the bridge, I raised my gun and told him in English that he is not permitted on our side. He gave me a piercing look, turned around, and went back.
Half a second later, one of the Israeli officers in charge rushed up to me and said, "What did you do?!" I said, "My job." He yelled back, "Oh no!" and ran across to the bridge and the Jordanian officer, and apologized to him. They embraced and both returned to our side to have a cup of coffee, while I continued to evaporate and ask myself what I was doing there altogether and if anyone needed me there. A bit later, the Israeli officer came back to me and explained that we're not allowed to say, "You're not allowed" to a Jordanian, because it makes him feel bad and could ignite a regional war. "This is border of peace," he explained patiently. "They can come here whenever they want. No more war, no more bloodshed."
Six months later, a Jordanian soldier shot and murdered seven Israeli schoolgirls visiting the Naharayim Peace Island, another border crossing north of the Adam Bridge. Twenty years after that, the murderer was released from Jordanian prison and was welcomed home as a hero. Israel didn't comment, apparently not wishing to offend any Jordanian sensibilities.
The Jordanians are in fact very sensitive – perhaps because they don't really have a history and are a quite recent invention. The British, after all, established the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan especially for the Hashemites, after promising them the Arabian Peninsula in exchange for cooperation against the Ottoman Empire, but they [the British] did not keep their word. So as compensation, and also to encroach on the national home that the British had promised the Jews in exchange for cooperation against the Ottomans but did not keep their word, the British gave the Hashemites the entire eastern bank of the Jordan River. They also helped them take control of Judea and Samaria. And Jerusalem. And Gush Etzion. The main thing was that the Hashemites should not be offended…
In the Six Day War, the sensitive Jordanians tried to conquer all of central Israel from us, but we won. Ever since then, we have been doing everything we can to appease them, so that they should not feel too bad. This is why Jews are not allowed to drink water on the Temple Mount; the Jordanians are very sensitive to that. This is also why we give them lots of our desalinated water [in accordance with the peace treaty with Jordan of 1994], and double the amount every few years.
As a token of their appreciation, the Jordanians double the amount of weapons and ammunition that they allow the terrorist organizations to smuggle into Judea and Samaria. We of course close our eyes to this, in order not to shame them. This method worked so fantastically well with Gaza and Egypt, so there's no reason why it shouldn't work with Judea and Samaria and the sensitive Jordanians.
Stepping Up the Pace
The Jews of the Jordan Valley have been noticing for months heightened military activity over the border with Jordan. But it's a bit awkward for the IDF to ask the Jordanians what's going on there, because they might get insulted. Last month, a Jordanian MP was caught at the Allenby Crossing attempting to smuggle tremendous amounts of weapons into Israel. In response, we apologized to the king, because we realized what an embarrassment it was to him that one of his subjects was caught.
The Israeli Embassy in Amman looks like a fortified military base, because an Israeli presence in their capital is insulting to them. The same is true for Jewish holy objects such as tefillin, and this is why they don't allow Jewish tourists to bring them into their country.
So there was a murderous attack at the Jordanian border a few days ago. Is that a reason for us to hurt Jordanian feelings, now of all times? After all, we need a quiet eastern border so that we can deal with our northern and southern borders, after years of self-restraint in the face of everything that happened there, so as not to cause regional war. But with the Jordanians, it will be different; they won't hurt us, they're sensitive people. Let's just go back to talking all sorts of nonsense about the shifting sands on the beach and throwing sand on Ben-Gvir and in our own eyes. That should keep us busy and undistracted by the more important things.