Deja Vu by Nadia Matar June 16, 2003 http://www.israelnn.com/email.php3?what=article&id=2399 The reality in our little country reminds me of a movie that was produced in 1993 (ironically, the same year of the Oslo accords): Groundhog Day (“Waking Up Yesterday” was the Hebrew title of the movie). The movie is about Phil, an antipathetic and arrogant television weatherman who goes to a town in Pennsylvania to cover the annual Ground Hog Day ceremonies, and who is stranded there by a snowstorm. The day is February 2, and at the end of the day he goes to sleep, fully expecting to wake up the next day on February 3, but something very strange happens. Every time he wakes up on February 2 and the same day starts, over and over, just like it began the first time. Only he is aware of the fact that the same day keeps repeating itself. This becomes truly horrendous. Phil thinks that he is losing his mind, and, at first, he doesn't know how to escape this nightmare. One could think that the plot of Groundhog Day has taken control of the State of Israel. We have returned to the nightmarish days of Oslo, as if we had never been there before. Ten years ago, they sold us those stories as if "Arafat has changed and has become more moderate - let's give him a chance - we'll give him cities, weapons, and ammunition, and he'll fight the real terrorists of the Jihad and Hamas - Arafat and Dahlan will guarantee that there will be no terror - and if, woe be it, Arafat won't keep his promise, we can always go back to square one," or as per the refrain the Labor MK's liked to sing: "the IDF tanks can always return to Gaza." After every terrorist attack, the same familiar mantra was chanted over and over: "We won't let the extremist opponents of peace stop the process." After ten years of Jewish blood being shed by that same Arafat and his cohorts, making use of the arms, ammunition, and cities of refuge that they received from the Oslo architects, we could have expected that our new political leadership would find another way for us to deal with this problem. But now - just as in the movie - we who cried out in warning against the dangers of Oslo, are losing our minds when we see that we are, once again, being forced to "wake up yesterday" and repeat the Oslo nightmare, as if the last ten years had never happened. And this time with a new-old bloodstained and criminal agreement, the "Road Map agreement," whose architects - to our shame - are from the Likud. And they repeat the same empty slogans that we heard in the past: "Abu Mazen is a moderate - let's give him a chance - he and Dahlan will fight the Jihad - and if, God forbid, Abu Mazen will not meet his commitments, we can always go back and take control of the cities that the IDF will leave." And less than a week after the Aqaba summit, in which twenty-three Jews had already been murdered, we once again heard the same familiar refrain: "We will continue with the process, despite the terror attacks." Gevalt! What can be done to stop the nightmare from repeating itself and to get our life back? In the movie, Phil finally wakes up to a new day. How? When he learned from the mistakes of that day, and understood that he must improve, and completely change, his behavior. We, too, have the ability to leave the nightmare and stop the cursed renewed process before we lose our future. We must stop capitulating to the Arab enemy and begin to talk and act like proud Jews. This means that we must proclaim throughout the entire world: Eretz Israel belongs to the People of Israel, and only to it. No Jew has the right to hand over a single bit of the soil of Eretz Israel to foreigners. Not even a majority in the government or the Knesset can make the handing over of portions of the homeland legal and moral. We shall not obey if, God forbid, the government or the Knesset will betray the homeland. We shall steadfastly oppose any plan to uproot settlements or me'ahazim (outpost settlements). It is not the outposts that are illegal, but rather the order to destroy them. We appeal to our brothers and sons, our soldiers, to comply with the declaration by Yossi Sarid and Yair Tzaban from June 27, 1990, which they wrote in Yedioth Acharonot: "Let there be no misunderstandings among us, and let it not be said that you were not warned in advance: We shall not obey the transfer order, nor will our children and those we have educated obey it. The day that the transfer order - that is a patently illegal order - will be given, shall be the day of refusal to obey an order." And, most importantly: there is an alternative to the suicide agreements. Instead of formulating - together with the Arab enemy - plans for the expulsion of Jews from Eretz Israel, the wicked PLO Authority and the other terrorist organizations must be eliminated, and Israeli sovereignty imposed on all of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. A program must be drawn up for the repatriation of the hostile Arabs to the Arab countries. The solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict must be based on the principle: "The Land of Israel for the Jews, the Arab lands for the Arabs." Only in this manner will we awake from the nightmare and, in the words of the song, "awake tomorrow morning with a new song in our hearts." ------------------------------------------------- [Based in part on Nadia Matar’s article from the June 10, 2003, edition of Yediot Acharonot, Israel’s largest Hebrew-language newspaper.]