Джеймс Миченер - The Source

“What do you think?” he asked the men in the tent one night.

To his surprise, Tabari defended the Jews. “I place maximum importance on this matter of historical claims,” he said. “I believe that any organized people which has demonstrated a cohesiveness and common purpose has a right to its ancestral lands. So even though in this instance the Jews have recovered that land at my expense, they are nevertheless entitled to it. Perhaps they took too much too fast. Perhaps the present modus vivendi will require adjustment in minor points. But the Jews’ basic right to be where they are can’t be controverted.”

Dr. Eliav was, as always, careful and reflective. He lit his pipe, looked at the doors and said quietly, “Since no reporters are present I will confess that Jemail’s reasoning about adjusting the modus vivendi makes sense. Throughout history this bridge-land of Israel has been able to exist as a viable nation only when it maintained sensible economic relations with neighboring lands like Syria and Lebanon or neighboring empires like Egypt and Mesopotamia. We’d be idiots if we argued that some miracle in the twentieth century has changed that fundamental truth. So the present enmity between the nations of this area has got to be considered a temporary interruption of an historic process, and I have found that where temporary interruptions go against the grain of history they do not long endure. Now, how the necessary rapprochements are to be achieved I can’t say, but some weight must be given to the fact that we have made the land ours by demonstrating that we understand it and can make it productive. History usually takes such accomplishments into account, also.”

“But the real problem that worries Cullinane,” Jemail suggested, “is whether such custodianship does in theory as well as fact create ownership. Isn’t that your problem?”

“Precisely,” Cullinane agreed. “From what I said earlier, you know that I think it does. Superior husbandry gave the Anglo-Saxons custodianship of America. Superior English governance gave England temporary title to Ireland.”

“That word ‘temporary’ frightens me,” Eliav interrupted. “You mean that we Jews shall be here for a decade, then …”

“Certainly more than a decade,” Jemail laughed. “After all, how long did the English hold Ireland?”

“Six or seven hundred years,” Cullinane replied. “That’s what I mean when I say temporary.”

“I breathe easier,” Eliav said. He noticed that Jemail was about to speak, but apparently reconsidered and sat with his hands in his lap.

“Can we agree on this?” Cullinane asked. “The custodianship of Arab and Turk was a disaster, at least so far as land surface was concerned.”

“No argument from this Arab,” Jemail agreed affably. “Some years ago an Englishman named Jarvis pointed out that for centuries the world has been misled by a phrase. We called the Bedouins ‘the sons of the desert,’ whereas they were really ‘the fathers of the desert.’”

“What did he mean?” Cullinane asked.

“Wherever the Bedouin took his camels and his goats he destroyed good land to create his own desert. After all, very few people in the course of world history have been able to build deserts out of such fruitful areas as the Nile, the Euphrates and the Galilee.” He laughed, then added, “It’s our special talent, but of course we have others. And persistence is one of them. You know the maxim we Arabs are taught. ‘A man who gains his revenge after forty years is acting in haste.’”

“The question as I see it,” Eliav suggested, puffing at his pipe, “is whether the world is entitled to prevent the Bedouin from doing what he damned well pleases with his land. Are we justified in insisting that any segment of creation—a human life, a river, a horse that might run well if trained, a corner of land—must be utilized to its top capacity? Perhaps, in God’s strange way, the Bedouin who created deserts was acting more in harmony with the divine plan for this area than was the Jew, who proved he could eradicate those deserts.”

“It’s just possible,” Tabari said, “that God, having seen what you Jews and we Arabs did with this land, and the strange fruit we grew here—Islam, Judaism, Christianity—cried, ‘Turn that cursed place back to the desert so that no more religions are raised up in My name.’ Perhaps the way of the Bedouin is the way of God.”

The men relaxed as the photographer appeared with a pot of coffee. “What’s the argument?” he asked as he spread the cups.

“I asked if Israel’s constructive custodianship of land conferred on her a moral right to ownership,” Cullinane explained.

“Sounds like the pragmatic sanction of the imperialists,” the Englishman said brightly. “What we were tossed out of India for.”

“You’re right,” Eliav said. “If you judge the Jew in Israel solely from the point of custodianship you come close to charging him with imperialism. So we’ve got to consider moral right, but having admitted this I want to ask one question. Is there any nation on earth that can come before the bar of justice claiming that it exemplifies moral right? On this spot the Canaanites drove out the original owners, and the Jews expelled the Canaanites and Egyptians and Persians and Babylonians, and God knows who else. You Arabs,” he said, pointing to Jemail, “came into the act very late. Very late indeed. You just barely got here ahead of the Crusaders and the Turks. So why suddenly should Israel, of all nations on earth, be summoned before the bar of international justice to explain its moral right? You know, when there was a town on this tell years ago a girl who married had to be sure that on the morning after the wedding her mother could parade through the town a bloodstained sheet, proving that her daughter had been a virgin. What kind of sheet do you propose that the Israeli government parade through the world? And to whom? To Peru, for example, which disinherited its Indians and accomplished nothing in doing so? To Australia, which conscientiously set out to kill off every Tasmanian and succeeded? To Portugal? To the United States with its Negro problem? Let us first see parading through the streets of Jerusalem the bloodstained sheet of Russia, proving that she was a virgin. Or the sheets of Germany and France.”

Eliav had spoken with rather more force than he had intended, and the Englishman said, “I always think that bedding is a great topic for coffee,” and Tabari suggested, “Why don’t you throw their own Book at them? ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.’”

Eliav laughed and said that he apologized, then in his slow manner concluded, “What I was leading up to was this. Israel’s ultimate justification must be moral, but not in the way that nations have used that word in the past. We will not appeal to history nor to custodianship of land nor to the persecutions we suffered abroad. We’ll stand before the world and say, ‘Here in a small land we have shown how people of many backgrounds can live together in harmony. With us, Arab and Druse, Muslim and Christian know social justice.’ John, you’re wrong when you justify everything by custodianship of land. Anyone can attain that with a police force and some agriculture specialists. But Israel’s custodianship of people, of human rights, is going to be spectacular.” He hesitated, then pointed at each of the men with his pipe. “That’s to be our moral justification.”

Tabari clapped him on the shoulder and said, “In a land noted for noble speeches, that hit a fairly high standard, Eliav. But I’m afraid you won’t have time to prove your point, because what I see happening is this. After some years we Arabs will unite, impossible as that now seems. With leadership from some unsuspected outside quarter like Persia or Morocco, or perhaps from central Asia, as in the past, the united Arabs will drive the Jews into the sea. Just as we did the Crusaders. Of course, the entire civilized world will be aghast at the slaughter, but it will do nothing to stop us. Absolutely nothing. Spain, once again a monarchy perhaps, will accept some of the refugees. Poland and Holland will take some, as before. But then in the United States horrible pogroms will begin. I can’t see the reasons too clearly now, but you’ll think up some. All the Jews in New York will be marched into a gigantic space ship and shot off into the air on a no-return rocket, and good Christians led by your President will applaud. From San Francisco, from Cleveland and especially Fort Worth, other rockets will shoot forth. And off in space these lonely ships will circle the earth, and light will reflect from them so that at night you’ll be able to see them pass the moon, and people will cry, There go our Jews.’ And after many years the conscience of the world will be aroused, and citizens of great soul in Germany and Lithuania will make it possible for surviving Jews to come back once more to Palestine. And when they reach this spot and see how their irrigation plans have been allowed to lapse, and when they see how the Arabs permitted the schools and the vineyards to perish, they’ll say, ‘Things have sure gone to hell in our absence.’ And they’ll begin building all over again.”