In the midst of demonstrations in Gush Etzion against the Arabs' tendency to block the roads to Jewish traffic by shooting at cars as they pass, Nadia Matar was arrested for throwing a box of cookies at a passing Arab motorist.
You see, unlike the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, Matar is not one to endanger human life needlessly. Rather than actually harm the Arabs, Matar was out only to scare them a little, to make a point, and perhaps offer them something to eat, as is the Jewish way.
Or maybe the cookies were actually dangerous weapons. If they were as stale as the blandishments of Barak, Ben-Ami, Beilin, and Sarid that we are "closer than ever" to peace with the Arabs, then perhaps she should share the prisoners' dock with those men.
Perhaps her actions are symbolic of something more, though. Her treatment at the hands of the Israeli Police is enough to make anyone want to toss their cookies.
Think about it. For more than four months, Jews are scared to travel throughout a third of their country, and no one does much of anything to improve the situation. Arabs can freely throw stones, hurl firebombs, and shoot machine guns at cars with Israeli license plates. None are ever arrested, and retaliations rarely if ever occur. But let one Jew try to defend her home or her route to work, or the road used by her children's school bus, and automatically that Jew is arrested. Outside of Israel, that would be called anti-Semitism. Inside the Jewish State, it is called the Justice system.
One only wonders if Ehud Barak, Israel's version of the Pillsbury Dough Boy, had mounted a real defense when these Jews first came under attack, perhaps Nadia Matar would be at home baking cookies for her family.
Instead, she expressed what many Jews in Israel have been feeling lately. She tossed her cookies. It's so funny as to be sad. And truly, it is enough to make one sick as we watch the principles of Jewish defense and honest law enforcement get crushed underfoot, along with some really good cream filling.
Copyright 2001. Yehuda Poch is a writer living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
