Israeli citizen Yoav Shemer Kunz is from Jerusalem but lives and studies in France. He flew to Israel for the holidays, and he wrote yesterday on his Facebook page (Hebrew below):
“It’s already a week since my landing in Israel-Palestine. How easy it is to ignore the apartheid regime here. It’s indeed wonderful. Had I only known less, I surely would have enjoyed myself more here. Perhaps I would have lived here. That’s their secret here- knowing less. Knowledge is filth. Just don’t know. Don’t read. Don’t see. Don’t hear. And be afraid. Be very afraid. Not to know, and to be afraid! What a place… “
כבר שבוע מאז נחיתתי בישראל-פלסטין. כמה קל להתעלם ממשטר האפרטהייד פה. זה אכן נפלא. אם רק הייתי יודע פחות בטח הייתי נהנה פה יותר. אולי אפילו חי פה. זה הסוד שלהם פה – לדעת פחות. ידע זה רפש. רק לא לדעת. לא לקרוא. לא לראות. לא לשמוע. ולפחד. לפחד הרבה. לא לדעת, ולפחד! איזה מקום…
Thanks to Ofer Neiman for translation.
How much fear can dance on the head of a pin?
I don,t know and I do not want to know.I am better off not knowing .Knowledge is not power.It is inconvenient.It trespasses on my comfort zone and complicates the simplistic rationale I live by.
Everyone is out to get me.That is all I need to know.
RE: “Had I only known less, I surely would have enjoyed myself more here.” ~ Yoav Shemer Kunz
MY COMMENT: Oh, the consummate bliss of being a real Know Nothing*. How sweet it is!
America for the Americans! ! !
* Uncle Sam’s youngest son, Citizen Know Nothing. “A bust portrait of a young man representing the nativist ideal of the Know Nothing party. He wears a bold tie and a fedora-type hat tilted at a rakish angle. The portrait is framed by intricate carving and scrollwork surmounted by an eagle with a shield, and is draped by an American flag. Behind the eagle is a gleaming star. The flag hangs from a staff at left which has a liberty cap on its end. The Citizen Know Nothing figure appears in several nativist prints of the period (for instance “The Young America Schottisch,” no. 1855-5) and is probably an idealized type rather than an actual individual. The publishers, Williams, Stevens, Williams & Company, were art dealers with a gallery on Broadway.” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing
To fear and not to know! Perfect.
As the Jewish mother said to her son, on his departure to the Russian army, “Shoot lots of the enemies and never fear because, after all, what have you ever done to them?”
“And what has Israel ever done to the Palestinians to justify their manifest and manifold hatred and malevolence? Of course, nothing! And eat some more nice Jewish hummos, you shouldn’t get thin!”
Like the ordinary Germans who turned the other way and pretended not to see when their Jewish neighbours were stripped of their property and possessions, and sent away to God only knows where.