Larissa Amir speaks; here is the translation to English:
Words, Words, But There Are No Words
By
Larissa Amir
15 years.
I start to write, but the words do not come. It is as if they are stuck inside the keyboard. Finally they appear, words like the dead leaves that fall from the trees in autumn. For 15 years already, at the same time every fall, words begin to resemble dead leaves – lifeless, meaningless.
Clichés, slogans, curses.
“He murdered democracy”.
“He murdered peace”.
“He murdered the whole nation”.
Once upon a time, there was a nation that spoke of peace. There were speeches. There was pomp and ceremony. There were honors, medals and prizes. There were many great, beautiful words. As it is said: “They say: ‘Peace, peace!’, but there is no peace”. Because peace did not come. Explosions came instead of peace. They came into the buses, into the markets, into the cafes. There came shootings on the roads. Entire families disappeared from life, as if they had never existed. But the speeches did not stop. Because no one wanted to ask: what happened to the peace? Maybe it got lost? Who gave it wrong directions? Who deceived us all?
In our country after every mishap there is a commission of inquiry. When the Versailles wedding hall collapsed in Jerusalem and 23 people were killed, those found guilty of negligence and responsibility for the catastrophe were sentenced to prison. Fair enough, is it not? After all, life and death are not child’s play, regardless whether the lives at stake belong to high officials or to ordinary people.
Who was found responsible when the Oslo accords collapsed? Since the famous handshake on the White House lawn, around 1500 of our fellow citizens have died in terrorist attacks — men, women, children. Such are the consequences of misjudgment or self-deception or, as they have started to hint nowadays, political blindness. Of course, there was terror before the Oslo Accords, also. But everyone remembers what was the scope of the terror back then, and how everything changed immediately after the accord was signed. Who investigated this? Who is responsible? Who has paid the price?
But then, who needs an inquiry when the sole defendant is found and condemned before the fact? His name, of course, is Yigal Amir. He is the one who destroyed the dreams of an entire nation with a single wave of his hand, and ever since the entire nation cannot undo the damage he wrought.
It is not enough that he pays a greater price then those who sent the suicide bombers and shot on the roads. He must be removed from sight. He must be silenced. For fifteen years he has been held in solitary confinement, gagged by means of legal justifications invented on the spot, and bureaucratic procedures made up out of whole cloth. Who believes that even the hypothetical possibility of asking him a few questions (and not even on a live broadcast) is a threat to national security? Or is it that those who hold power simply do not wish to permit him to explain his actions? What if he confesses that he had no intention of killing peace, or democracy, or the entire nation? What if he says that this desperate, extreme act was, in his opinion, the last chance to escape the slippery slope of the insane reality brought about by the Oslo Accords, the last opportunity to escape an even greater bloodshed? What will they do then with the meaningless clichés that have been piling up on the ground for 15 years like heaps of autumn leaves? What if this leads to a real, serious and deep discussion? What if it becomes possible to actually analyze what really happened back then? What led a law-abiding young man, a soldier of the Golani Brigade, a successful law student and a good friend to commit an act that turned him into “the disgusting and repugnant murderer”, as is the custom to label him around these parts? Who should answer these questions? And who is ready to answer them?
Because there are no words.