Copyright © 2002 by J. Neil Schulman. All rights reserved.

Unholy Lands

by J. Neil Schulman

 

I have in front of me a U.S. twenty-dollar bill.

On the back of the bill is a picture of the White House, the phrase “The United States of America,” and the motto “In God We Trust.”

On the front face of the bill are serial numbers, the seal of the United States Federal Reserve Bank, and the signatures of the Treasurer of the United States and the Secretary of the Treasury.

At the center of the front face of the bill is a portrait of Andrew Jackson, president of the United States from 1829 to 1837.

I am not initiating a discussion of monetary policy, though I can’t resist noting the irony that the face of a president who abolished an early United States central bank now adorns a latter-day central bank’s note.

No, I take cognizance of Andrew Jackson’s face on the contemporary currency of the United States of America because, in 1830, President Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which in 1838 resulted in the forcible relocation of the Cherokee nation from their lands in Georgia along a deadly thousand-mile march to Oklahoma. Over 4,000 Cherokee died along the way and ever since it has been called the Trail of Tears.

I’ve been known to write a science fiction story or two, so let me ask you a “what if” question.

Let’s say that a couple of years from now, descendants of the dispossessed Cherokee – members of a nationalist movement to return to their ancestral lands in Georgia – managed to convince large numbers of people who have traces of Cherokee blood to move back to Georgia and take up residence.

Through lobbying, the new Cherokee get the president of the United States to issue a declaration that Western Georgia is the ancestral homeland of the Cherokee; but the president hedges his bets by also declaring it the homeland of the Georgians who live there now.

Later, the Cherokee win a U.S. Supreme Court victory restoring Georgian lands to them, including the city of Atlanta, as a sovereign Indian nation. The United Nations gets into the act and confirms the decision.

Fifty years later, a full-scale civil war is going on in Georgia between the Cherokee and the latter-day Georgians.

Obviously, I am trying to make an analogy to the current situation in Israel between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs. If I were writing this as a science-fiction novel, I would fill it with analogic events including population movements, religious and cultural intolerance, terrorist bombings – the whole business.

I’m not going to write that story. I’d find it too depressing.

But I do think I have a point to make here.

The Middle East is not the only place on earth where, if one went to the trouble, one couldn’t make a good case for the restoration of ancestral homelands and fomenting a long-term civil war over real-estate. Considering how poorly the Cherokee people have fared in the last 16 decades, they might be able to convince a sympathetic world that they have as good a case for a restored homeland as the Jews of Europe had following Hitler’s holocaust.

As much as I think Andrew Jackson’s nearest contemporary of ours might well be Slobodan Milosevic, I think anyone who initiated a “White Rose” movement to restore a Cherokee homeland in Georgia would be a maniac. If the Cherokee actually wanted a new homeland, I’d suggest they start with someplace nobody is currently living, and start developing. I’ve flown over the United States. There’s still plenty of unoccupied land.

But here’s my point.

Anyone who fought a war over Holy Land in the state of Georgia would be a maniac.

Anyone who decided that it was worth blowing up school buses, cafes, and supermarkets over conflicting deeds of title to real estate in Georgia would be maniacs.

When I look at Israel, I see a civil war between maniacs.

I believe in God.

I understand that the Arabic word “Allah” translates into the English language as God.

When the Jews now living in Israel, the Hebrews who lived there millennia ago, the Christians and Muslims who have lived there over millennia and who live there now, talk about God, they all are talking about the same God.

And if they think that God wants them to fight and kill each other over real estate, even real estate of multiple historic religious significances, they are certifiable nutballs. With apologies to my good friend Tom Szasz, I have no problem with suicidal maniacs who want to blow up themselves and innocent civilians being strapped down by strong men in white coats and injected with Thorazine until they come to their senses.

It may well be that the territorial disputes in the Middle East will not be solved without divine intervention. Speaking for myself, I’m just a little miffed that God hasn’t shown up already to work a few miracles and tell the maniacs killing each other in His name to knock it off. But I also have to give God the benefit of the doubt for His tardiness; for all I know God is preoccupied at the moment with a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy.

But if God doesn’t show up soon, I am going to be tempted to ask the world’s only remaining superpower to play God.

The United States could invade Israel and take the territory for our own. Some purists would call this imperialistic; I merely think that whichever nation is demonstrably morally superior to everyone else is God’s chosen people … and in my opinion, the United States is so far beyond the rest of the planet in our anal-retentive obsession with respect for individual rights that we win the morality contest hands down. The past crimes of the United States, including crimes against Native Americans, African Americans, and Asian Americans, are growing pains compared with the unrelenting genocides that dot the history of Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Or we could simply buy Israel for cash, the way we did the Louisiana Purchase from France or bought Alaska from Russia. Aside from a few antique sites of interest to Indiana Jones and American Express, Israel is about as uniquely valuable as Jean, Nevada. But if the American taxpayer dropped a trillion bucks on buying Israel and paying the armed partisans to move elsewhere and open fast-food stands, it would be cheap at twice the price if, by doing so, we avoided another day like 9/11.

I don’t believe in holy land. Land is never holy. The closest you get to anything holy on this planet is the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Calendar.

Piling up land with a lot of dead bodies and bad memories does not make it holy. Killing God’s son in a certain place doesn’t give it what real-estate agents call curb appeal.

Jews don’t need a stinking wall to talk to God. God is used to Jews wailing His ears off from wherever they are.

Muslims don’t need a mosque to talk to God. All they need is a rug and a compass – and the rug is just to make your knees comfortable; God will listen to your entreaties regardless of your posture.

Land is nothing more than a place to lie down your head at night and make love. I'm all in favor of defending your home when it comes under attack but no spot on earth is uniquely worth killing other people’s babies over. If the real estate you're on doesn't have a clean deed of title, in the name of God, find an nice unoccupied spot with decent weather somewhere else and plant a fig tree. With a little luck, you might even strike oil.

 

Part II

In the less than 12 hours since I emailed out the above, I’ve received two emails informing me that because the Jews who settled in modern Palestine paid hard cash to Arabs for the land, the Jews are morally the right side to back and the Palestinians are nothing but a bunch of sore losers.

You people are even crazier than I thought.

You want to talk about Israel as a land deal? Jesus H.  ….

If this is about a real-estate purchase, did those fast-talking Arab traders swindle those gullible Jews! These old Arab landlords sold the Jews worthless desert land by telling them what a paradise they could make out of it, not bothering to mention that their current tenants had lived there a long time and might get pissed off about having to move.

You want to talk about buying and selling land? You tell me that land which I bought years ago is so valuable to the kids of the old tenants that they’re willing to send their children out to blow themselves up to get it back, I’ll tell you what we have here are what the real-estate trade calls motivated buyers.

What, have the Israelis forgotten how to be Jews? Sell them the god-forsaken land back at a hefty profit, jacking up the price because of all the improvements. If they don’t have cash, make them sign sixty-year mortgages, and appoint the Swiss Guards as the collection agents for the loans. Take the profits and retire to Palm Springs.

Sheesh.

But, of course it’s not about a land deal. Land deals get made every day and people don’t blow up school buses over variable interest rates.

It’s about religious fanaticism.

Religious fanaticism, by the way, has nothing to do with God. God is not crazy and doesn’t want people acting crazy.

The Middle East is a cluster of psychiatric disorders. It is a mental hospital where the shrinks have gone on strike.

People who can’t get through their day without their religious rituals are self-made autistics, and they need to be told to get a life.

People who get so attached to historical sites that they’re willing to kill over it have obsessive attachment disorders. They need to be whacked up the side of the head with a two-by-four.

People who can’t see how destructive their attachment to land is are narcissists.  They need to be told to get over themselves.

I’m not saying that God told me to tell them all this.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if He did.

J. Neil Schulman
April 2, 2002

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