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CounterPunch
January
29, 2003
Domicide
by ADAM ENGEL
DOMICIDE
Main Entry: 1 domicile Etymology: Middle
English, from Middle French, from Latin domicilium, from domus
Date:15th century
1 : a dwelling place : place of residence
: HOME 2 a : a person's fixed, permanent, and principal home
for legal purposes b : RESIDENCE 2b
from Webster's Collegiate
Dictionary
Being the only Jew at a party is tough-going these
days if you're unfortunate enough to believe that whacko theory
(still not scientifically proven) that Palestinians are human
beings with thoughts and emotions and are therefore deserving
of certain rights, among them justice and freedom from oppression.
Folks automatically assume you're an anti-Semite.
As if this weren't bummer enough, the
screens all over the room displayed half-a-million flag-waving
yahoos in Time Square waiting for the bomb to drop, the ball
to drop, the shoe to drop; waiting for something to drop. And
it was my birthday. Almost my birthday. New Years Eve. I still
had a few hours before this year of our wars 2002 became this
year of our wars 2003 and my 38th waddled to me in virgin white
diapers.
Now everyone knows that many of the most
vehement of anti-Semites these days are Jews, especially the
ones who refuse to kneel to the dictates of Sharon and his obsequious
state-side "supporters" (Perle, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz,
Lieberman, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, George Bush etc.). Still,
I never should have fallen for the bait laid out by Uncle Dom,
so deviously cunning in his ignorance. Eighty-year-old Uncle
Dom. Self described Italian Catholic. Mind like a steel trap:
cold, hard, empty.
I listened silently as he declared that
if Bush wasn't MAN enough to take out Saddam and the Saudis,
the REAL culprits behind the WTC massacre, why, Old Uncle Dom
would do the job himself. And anyway, why wasn't I supporting
Israel, the only democracy in the region? What was I, some kind
of Arab-loving anti-Semite?
How stupid I was to ask Uncle Dom what
books or articles, he had read on the subject of Palestine!
"None."
"None?"
"Look, I don't have any facts. But
what I think is..." and he went back to his tirade as the
54 inch television behind us blared the happy flag-waving minions
in Times Square. It's one thing to wave the flag on fourth of
July if that's your thing, but on New Years Eve? When did this
"tradition" begin?
Who can argue with such a brilliant rhetorical
craftsman as Uncle Dom? "I don't have any facts. But what
I think is..." would later have me lying in bed for two
days, staring at the wall, as if trying to figure out a Zen Koan.
Nevertheless, I had to think of some kind of reply. People had
taken interest in our little debate. A good number had even turned
their backs to the giant screen and encircled us, perhaps hoping
we would come to blows. Tough old buzzard, Uncle Dom was, and
I was no kid myself. Still, I wasn't 38 YET, and I bet I could
have taken him. But really it would have been so unseemly to
pummel my wife's revered uncle in his own home, where my in-laws'
annual New Years Eve gathering took place.
To add insult to injury, Uncle Jay chimed
in, "Yeah, what are you, some kind of Jew hater or something?"
Uncle Jay was one of those impossibly
fat specimens of Manhood one might see chasing a tiny Philippine
"mail order bride" around the set of a daytime talk
show, demanding his "conjugal rights." Real wide load.
Phone company assigned different area codes to various of his
Allegheny-sized flesh ranges so as not to be gypped on out-of-region
calls.
"Geez, Uncle Jay. I thought if anyone
would understand the complexities of the situation it would be
you. You're Irish, for god's sake. Haven't you ever read "Ulysses?"
"Yes. As a matter of fact I did,"
said Uncle Jay, proudly. "And I believe he was one of the
finest Generals ever to serve this nation. Whatever his faults
as a President."
Okay, so I was really out-gunned.
"Look," I reasoned, carefully.
"I never, ever said or would say that I didn't support the
right of the Israeli people to live peacefully and prosperously
behind the 1967 borders, or Israel proper. Same way I support
the right of the Chinese to live in China, or the Indonesians
to live in Indonesia. But I sure as hell don't support the Chinese
annexation of Tibet or all the nightmares and slaughter Indonesia
brought to East Timor. Or the Turkish and Iraqi treatment of
the Kurds. You can support the right of people to live in peace
in their own country without having to condone the violence and
criminality of their government. It's like I 'support' the people
who live in the U.S., but I sure as hell don't 'support' the
policies of that war-mongering bully in the White House. He's
not even a real President."
Oops. Now I'd done it.
"Well I don't know what country
YOU live in, but George Bush is MY President. He's America's
President, voted in by the people of the USA," Uncle Dom
declared proudly, truculently.
"Well, no, actually, he wasn't.
He was granted the presidency by the Supreme Court. But let's
not go there," I said, hastily. "Okay. Try this on
for size. You 'support' the people of Italy, right?"
"Hell yeah. I'm an Italian. I must
have visited Italy two dozen times. Not including the War."
"What war?"
"What war?" he looked around,
grinning, incredulous. "The war to save DEMOCRACY against
FASCISM. The Second World War. I did what I had to do in that
war. It wasn't pretty, like you kids see in the movies. But I
did what I had to. I served my country. And I was young enough
to be YOUR son. Twenty years old, I was."
"Okay, then. So you didn't support
the Italian people during WWII?"
"What's the Italian people got to
do with it? I was fighting' Hitler and Mussolini. I was LIBERATING
the Italian people from fascism so they could live free like
us, dammit."
"Right. So you admit that you can
support the right of a certain people to live in peace and freedom,
while not supporting the actions of their government, which,
in the case of Italy, was authoritarian, fascist and oppressive."
"What the hell are you talking?
You saying Israel is fascist?" asked Uncle Dom, incredulously.
"No, not at all. I'm just saying
that a 'people's' will is not the same thing as the will of their
government. Even in a democracy, so called."
"Look, I'll tell you what I know,
and I know this for a fact," said Uncle Dom. "The United
Nations gave the Jews that land in 1948. It was a legal authority,
recognized by the world as a legal authority, and they gave Israel
to the Jews legally and if the Arabs have a problem with that
fuck them. That's why we're gonna kick Saddam's ass. And those
Saudis who bombed the WTC. No respect for international authority."
"But it wasn't the United Nations'
land to give."
"Well, yeah, England's. But the
Jews kicked their asses the hell out of there, and rightfully
so."
"It wasn't England's land either.
It was Palestinian land, belonging to Palestinians, the majority
of whom were Moslems living with, but often fighting against,
both Christian and Jewish minorities for at least a thousand
years. Where did the UN get the authority to give any land to
anyone without consulting the people who lived there?"
"Don't you tell me about the UN.
I fought in that damn war to help create it. It's a legal body.
A necessary authority created to settle things DEMOCRATICALLY."
"Okay. How about his. Say I want
half of your house..."
"Fuck you, you want half of my house.
I'll kick your -"
"Hypothetically. I want half of
your house. This house we're in right now. I go to the local
police, a legitimate legal authority, and I say, 'I want Uncle
Dom's House.' Now the cops say, 'No, that wouldn't be right.'"
"Damn right it wouldn't," snarled
Uncle Dom.
"But what the cops do say is that
they'll give me HALF your house. That would be fair, the cops
say. Now, since they're a legitimate legal authority, we gotta
go along with their judgment. So I move into half your house
and you and your family can take the other half."
Uncle Dom got a kick outta this. He turned
to our now rather sizeable group of listeners and said, "Getta
load of this guy! I invite him to one party and already he's
taking half my fucking house."
"Now suppose," I continued,
"I start raising a family. Suddenly the half of the house
the cops gave me isn't enough. Also, I have relatives coming
from all over who want to stay with me. So I start moving into
your half of the house and making changes. Add a bed here, do
some restructuring there, change the wall-paper. Little by little,
your half starts becoming my half. See what I'm saying?"
"No, I don't see. In fact this whole
thing about you moving into my house is pissing me off. Let's
get back to the real argument. These Palestinians have no right
to be fucking with Israel. Ever look at a goddam map? They have
these huge countries all over the Arab world they can go to.
Why make so much trouble over that little slip of real estate?
Crazy. Just crazy is all."
"What do you mean 'Arab world?'
Syria? Jordan? Egypt? That's like kicking half the Spaniards
out of Spain and saying, 'Hey, no problem. They can just go to
France or Germany or, or Italy -"
"It's the countdown! It's the countdown!"
someone cried.
"10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1- HAPPY NEW
YEAR!"
Champaign popping, plastic horns tooting,
hugs, kisses and another trip around the Sun. I withdrew from
Uncle Dom and ushered in 2003 and my thirty-eighth year on this
sad planet in the comforting arms of my wife.
"Happy Birthday, baby. Happy New
Year," she said.
Behind me I heard Uncle Dom talking to
a new group of less adversarial listeners.
"How do you like the nerve of those
North Koreans, starting up all this crap with nukes? We're gonna
have to start throwing our weight around. Iraq. Saudi Arabia.
North Korea. Just take 'em all out, take the oil, and be done
with it. You think we can't do it? We can do anything we fucking
want."
Adam Engel
can be reached for comment at asengel@attglobal.net
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