Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre(71)

—The Hebrew Hashkiveinu, a blessing of protection





From Golda’s Daughter: My Life in the IDF by Lieutenant Colonel Hannah Reinhardt Roth (ret.)


Intellect. That was the only way to reach them. Emotion? Passion? Never. That was debasement, the language of animals. I tried to remain calm and to keep the conversation along the lines of an academic debate.

I discussed Egypt’s expulsion of Soviet advisors as punishment for Moscow’s armament moratorium. I delineated the specifics of said armaments, from MiG-23 fighter bombers to the Frog intermediate range ballistic missiles. With Sheehan’s New York Times story as ammunition, I demonstrated how these offensive weapons were no different than the columns of T-55 main battle tanks Nasser had unsheathed against Israel in ’67.

Father, again, insisted that Sadat was not Nasser, which I maintained justified my point. Sadat, in order to prove that he was not a clone of his predecessor, had to prove to his people, the Arab League, and the world at large that he could accomplish what Nasser couldn’t—driving the yehud into the sea. Wasn’t this strategy, painting victory over defeat, the motive behind so many past wars? In fact, hadn’t Nasser tried to erase Israel in order to erase his debacle in Yemen?

I couldn’t help but be proud of my campaign. Supporting facts. Inarguable logic. I could almost hear the phantom applause of Clausewitz, Mahan, and Jomini. Only Schlieffen withheld his praise, clucking at my critical mistake of avoiding a two-front war.

“Hostilities are impossible.” Alex always knew when to strike, just when Father needed him the most. “The United Nations will see to that.”

I responded with a question. “What ‘United’ Nations do you mean? The declining British? The anti-Semitic French? The Communist bloc that takes its orders from the Kremlin or the so-called non-aligned state hostages of Arab oil?”

I could see another thought readying to charge. I broke it with a preemptive, “The same United Nations that stood by and did nothing after fourteen Syrian probing attacks, and who pulled their peacekeepers out of the Sinai to make way for the Egyptians?”

Alex spluttered, “But America…”

I’d won. I knew it. America? I buried him in counterpoints. Vietnam. Watergate. The inward distractions of cultural civil strife. Alex huffed, retreating before my onslaught. If I’d only been magnanimous in victory and refrained from that conclusive nail. “America can’t help us.”

Just two letters. One word.

“Us?” The resurgent flames blazed in Father’s eyes. “Us? Hannah, aren’t we Americans?”

“American Jews,” I countered, regrouping before those smug, tranquil faces. “Haven’t we learned anything from our past?”

“Mmmhh,” mused Father, pretending to ponder my point. “Learning is indeed the key, learning to understand ourselves.” His hand sailed theatrically over the bookshelf behind us. “Biology, psychology…”

“Political economy,” Alex added, winning an approving smile from our patriarch.

“Without unearthing the roots of our desire for conflict,” Father lectured, “we are no better than pre-Pasteur physicians who acknowledged the existence of microbes yet failed to connect their existence to disease.”

Poetic, dramatic, and directly lifted from the pages of his last book. His eyes had even shifted from mine to the sacred arc of his latest shelved tome. Jung’s Hiroshima: Examining the Psychosis of War.

“There’s nothing nobler than working for a peaceful future,” I said, trying to appeal to his vanity, “but there won’t be a future if we don’t secure the present.” I opened the window, and like a released djinni, the sounds and smells of the Upper East Side gushed in. “And that present has an entire region’s armies mobilizing to wipe us off the map.”

Alex gave a slight, amused chuckle. “So, you’re saying we should burn our books and just club our way forward like troglodytes?”

“I’m saying,” I shot back, “that it’s suicidal to waste time deconstructing the Versailles Treaty the morning AFTER Kristallnacht!”

Father, still sitting, smiled that insufferable, victorious curl. “Ah,” he said, waving his infuriating finger to the sky, “and now we come to the final keep in your crumbling fortress. Should we have fought?”

It was an old argument, as worn and comfortable as the old leather throne he occupied. Should we have fought? The first time I’d been six, asking about the black and white faces on our mantel. Who were they? Where is Strasbourg? Why did they die? Why didn’t they leave with you? And with the final question, “Why didn’t they fight back?” came the inevitable dismissal.

“Because it would not have made a difference.”

Those same pictures stared down at us now, those smiling, innocent death masks.

“An eye for an eye,” my father continued, “only leaves the world blind.”

I parried his Gandhi quote with another saying from the Raj: “If the Indians all pissed at once, the British would be washed out to sea.”

“Are you dismissing nonviolence,” said Alex, shaking his head, “are you really going to deny the progress made in this country by Dr. King?”

“Are you going to deny that King’s leverage was based on the fear of Malcolm X?” Sensing an opening, I tried to break the siege. “An open hand works when the alternative is a fist.”