Serce nie sadysta, kiedyś przestanie bić

Andrzej Koraszewski

Dzwonek do bramy, odrywam się od korekty tłumaczonego artykułu i idę zobaczyć, kogo bogi przyniosły. Przed bramą znalazłem parę sympatycznie wyglądających młodych ludzi z małym, może sześcioletnim, a może siedmioletnim chłopcem. Mężczyzna podaje mi ulotkę. Nie muszę jej studiować. Świadkowie Jehowy chcą mnie przekonać do studiowania Biblii. Uśmiecham się przyjaźnie i informuję, że jestem ateistą. Mężczyzna chce się dowiedzieć dlaczego, więc odpowiadam, że próbuję być życzliwy dla innych nie ze względu na zagrożenie wieczystą karą piekła, a dlatego, że warto być przyzwoitym.

Kobiet uśmiecha się ciepło, mężczyzna kręci głową, a chłopczyk przestępuje z nogi na nogę.

Wyjaśniam, że zajmuję się nauką, a ta mówi, że prawdopodobieństwo istnienia istot nadprzyrodzonych jest mikroskopijne.

Mężczyzna pyta jaką nauką się zajmuję.

– Długa historia, studiowałem socjologię, ale socjologia jest podobna do teologii, dużo w niej spekulacji, niczego nie daje się udowodnić.

Stojąca obok męża kobieta parska śmiechem, mężczyzna nie daje za wygraną i zapewnia że Bóg jest. Chce wiedzieć czym dokładniej się zajmuję. Mówię, że studiowałem socjologię,  od socjologii uciekłem do historii ekonomii, historia ekonomii jest spleciona z historią religii, historia religii jest spleciona z ewolucją…

– No właśnie, ewolucja, ucieszył się stojący za bramą potężny mężczyzna, którego iloraz  inteligencji oceniałem na oko na 105. – Kiedy znajdzie pan na plaży szklaną butelkę…

Przerywam mu i mówię, że ta butelka, to zapewne zegarek na wrzosowisku, bardzo stary argument o skomplikowanym przedmiocie, który musiał być przez kogoś zrobiony. Wie pan, w dzieciństwie słyszałem dowcip o tym jak nauczycielka powiedziała, że szkło robi się z piasku, Jaś się zdumiał, ale kolega z ławki szepnął mu na ucho, żeby się nie martwił, że nauczycielka musi tak mówić, bo jej ci komuniści tak każą.

Głośny wybuch śmiechu młodej kobiety mógł wskazywać na iloraz inteligencji w granicach 120. Chłopczyk nadal przestępował z nogi na nogę.

Wyjaśniam mężczyźnie, że jak znajdzie nieoszlifowany diament, to nie będzie się zastanawiał nad tym, kto go zrobił.

Mężczyzna postanowił zmienić temat.

– Czyli wierzy pan w wielki wybuch…

– Wie pan – odpowiedziałem – w nauce nie ma wiary. Mamy dowody, które mogą okazać się błędne lub niepełne. Nauka to taki legoland, budujemy z klocków, które mamy i szukamy klocków, których nam brakuje.

Chłopczyk podniósł głowę z ciekawością.

– W religii – mówiłem dalej – próbujemy umocnić to, w co wierzymy, w nauce próbujemy podważyć to co nam się zdaje, że jest prawdą, żeby zostało to, czego podważyć się nie da.

– Więc nauka się myli – ucieszył się mężczyzna.

– Oczywiście, że nauka się myli, to jest nieustający spór, gromadzenie dowodów, korygowanie błędów, nauka jest ludzka, nie ma w niej nic boskiego.

– Ludzki umysł jest boski, został stworzony przez Boga, człowiek może uprawiać naukę, bo jest istotą myślącą, jest Homo sapiens.

– To prawda mamy duży mózg, ale nie tak sprawny jak nam się wydaje. Jest taka teoria, że ten duży mózg zawdzięczamy dziewczynom, że jest jak ogon pawia, służył początkowo głównie do popisów. To wszystko przez baby, łatwiej je było uwodzić śpiewem, ładnymi ozdobami, malunkami, panie wybierały jaskiniowych celebrytów i potem rodziły dzieci z coraz większymi główkami. Ten pomysł z biblijną Ewą wcale nie jest taki odległy od prawdy, tyle, że to nie było jabłko.

Kobieta zachichotała, mężczyzna spojrzał na nią karcącym wzrokiem, chłopczyk dalej przestępował z nogi na nogę.

Dlaczego jest pan ateistą – w jego pytaniu nie było cienia agresji, raczej autentyczna ciekawość.

Odpowiedziałem, że sam się nad tym  zastanawiam, że w czasach komunistycznych to było trochę wstydliwe,  bo wśród ateistów są ludzie, z którymi człowiek wolałby nie mieć nic wspólnego, a wśród wierzących jest wielu takich, z którymi bardzo dużo mnie łączy. Jest jednak kilka ważnych powodów. Po pierwsze, nie mam dowodów na istnienie istot nadprzyrodzonych, po drugie musiałbym szukać najmniej paskudnej religii. Nie chciałbym wyznawać religii Azteków i wierzyć, że mój bóg oczekuje ludzkiej krwi, nie chciałbym być muzułmaninem i wierzyć, że mój bóg nagrodzi mnie 72 dziewicami za zabijanie  niewiernych, nie chciałbym być chrześcijaninem i wierzyć w życie pozagrobowe. Mam 84 lata, niedługo umrę i bardzo  by mnie męczyła perspektywa wieczności w jednej celi z Rydzykiem.

Kobieta żachnęła się.

– My nie jesteśmy od Rydzyka, my sobie inaczej tę wieczność wyobrażamy.

– Każda wieczna świadomość byłaby koszmarem, kres naszej świadomości jest piękną obietnicą, a tego życia, które mamy, nie warto marnować na puste gadanie.

– Dlaczego marnować – zapytała.

– Nie wiem jak to pani wyjaśnić. Pani mąż powiedział, że jesteśmy Homo sapiens, ale jesteśmy również Homo faber. Wpada Homo faber do kawiarni i mówi do Homo sapiens: przestań myśleć o niebieskich migdałach i zrób wreszcie coś pożytecznego dla innych.

– Pan zawsze żartuje – zapytała.

– Tak często jak to możliwe. Widzi pani, uśmiech i żart są jak ogon psa, pozwalają powiedzieć innym, że nie mamy wobec nich złych zamiarów, a życzliwość pozwala nam przetrwać w tym strasznym świecie. Serce nie sadysta, kiedyś przestanie bić, ale mam nadzieję, że uda mi się żartować do samego końca.

Przeprosiłem, że muszę już wracać do przerwanej pracy, wyjaśniając, że czytam właśnie artykuł o tym, kiedy straciliśmy ogony.

– Kiedy  – zapytał chłopiec.

– Zanim zostaliśmy ludźmi, mniej więcej 25 milionów lat temu i teraz próbujemy zrozumieć jak do tego doszło.

– To dawno – powiedział chłopiec, a ja machnąłem im ręką na pożegnanie.

Wracając do biurka zastanawiałem się, czy przeczytaliby opowieść o moim ateizmie, czy odrzuciliby ją tak, jak ja lekceważąco odrzuciłem ich ulotkę.

Andrzej Koraszewski – Publicysta i pisarz ekonomiczno-społeczny.
Ur. 26 marca 1940 w Szymbarku, były dziennikarz BBC, wiceszef polskiej sekcji BBC, i publicysta paryskiej „Kultury”. Więcej w Wikipedii. Facebook

Debunking the myth of the muqawamah (resistance)

ERAN LERMAN

Hamas terrorists who were caught during the Oct. 7 massacre and during the ISrael Defense Forces operation in the Gaza Strip, at a courtyard in a prison in southern Israel, Feb. 14, 2024. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.

Debunking the myth that Islamist “heroes” are willing to fight to the death, unlike their secular nationalist predecessors in past wars against Israel, should be among the long-term goals of the present conflict.

The evidence is increasingly available. Despite the deliberate lack of full disclosure and official data, it is safe to assert that the number of Hamas fighters (and others belonging to smaller terror groups) who have given themselves up in battle in Gaza has been rising since the beginning of 2024, specifically during the fighting in Khan Younis and Shifa Hospital. Beyond the intelligence value obtained and the possible leverage for the release of Israeli hostages, the symbolism is strategically significant.

Achieving the surrender of large numbers of enemy fighters is obviously advantageous, first of all, in terms of incurring fewer casualties and requiring less military effort than a “fight to the finish.” It has also been proven to be of immense value in obtaining vital intelligence, for example in the case of Israel’s war with Hamas the location of tunnels and their entrances. Another operational consideration has to do with improving Israel’s leverage in the negotiations for the release of the hostages Hamas is still holding in Gaza.

Yet in addition, the surrender of Hamas terrorists is also of long-term value at the strategic level. For decades, the Islamist totalitarian terrorist groups, from Hezbollah and Hamas to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS), have cultivated the legend that the muqawamah (“resistance”), rooted in (a version of) religious faith, will stand and fight to the last—unlike the flight and surrender which marked the defeat of secular Arab nationalism, above all in the war of 1967.

As against “the shoes in the sand” still etched in the Arab collective memory, they posit the willingness, even eagerness, of “resistance” fighers for shahada (martyrdom)—whether that of the suicide bombers or of fighters in the field. Indeed, in the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and the limited ground incursions into Gaza in 2008 and 2014 (there was no ground maneuver in 2012 or 2021) very few prisoners were taken, enhancing the myth and adding to the appeal of Islamist ideas around the region.

Thus, the change now taking place in Gaza is of great symbolic significance, which Israel should work to enhance. This does not require the publication of humiliating images, which in the West evoke unpleasant associations with the Abu-Ghraib jail scenes during the American occupation of Iraq. However, documenting the actual acts of surrender and spreading images that reverse and debunk the myth—raising questions as to the Islamists’ willingness to sacrifice themselves while they bring about a disaster for their people—is a strategic asset in the overall war of ideas against totalitarian Islamism across the region.

What gave the “resistance” myth its resonance?

During the heady decades after the collapse of colonialism and the rise of independent Arab states, they were usually dominated by a secular, nationalist and modernist ideology, such as Nasserism in Egypt, but all this was shattered in 1967. The images of defeat, flight and the surrender of thousands on the battlefields of the Six-Day War are still bitterly remembered, and occasionally surface in political caricatures—symbolized by the shoes left behind in the sand.

Islamists latched on to these images and their implications to suggest that the secular, national and socialist regimes, such as Nasser’s or the Ba’ath (“renaissance”) Party, failed to fire up the ranks with the necessary spirit of resilience and willingness to sacrifice “fi sabil Allah”—in God’s cause, in pursuit of the duty of jihad and in obedience to religious injunctions. As an alternative, they depict the various Islamist movements and combatants, whether in Lebanon, Gaza, or across the region, whose men “love death” and are therefore indomitable.

This message, repeated in the formative texts of these movements—and for example in the speeches of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah—also seeks to bring about the demoralization of the Israeli public: “You” Zionists love the good life and cling to it, while “we” eagerly await the realization of our wish for the shahada, literally a “testimonial” death (that of those who fell in battle or sacrificed their lives in a religiously significant conflict, i.e. with presumed enemies of Islam). Therefore, down the road Israel is bound to be defeated. The sacrificial myth of the “resistance” is therefore meaningful in terms of constructing concepts and expectations about the future of the conflict, as well as in mobilizing fighters and building up their self-image as those who save the honor of people who were humiliated by surrender (and at the level of policy, by the acceptance of Israel’s right to exist).

These images of steadfastness (sumud) and willingness to sacrifice have their bearing also on the regional balance of power. At least in theory, they weaken and undermine the “camp of stability”—which Israel is part of, in practice—and play into the hands of the various Islamist camps: Iran, its proxies (especially Hezbollah) and allies; the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots, including Hamas; and the jihadist terror groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Today’s reality is that these images are spread not only by the traditional media channels which support the Islamists—such as Al Jazeera in Qatar and the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen channel, associated with Hezbollah—but also by the posting of “heroic” stances and actions on social networks.

The implications of extensive surrenders

It is this intensely nurtured image of heroism and an indomitable spirit, and the specific historical context, which lends deep meaning to the growing numbers of Hamas men who choose surrender over death. Aspects of the IDF operations in both Khan Yunis and Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital (where hundreds were reportedly detained) contributed to the achievement of this result. In some of the cases, the surrender was also documented by media elements.

All this has immediate tactical benefits:

The signs of demoralization and loss of fighting spirit in the enemy ranks in key places can lead to a similar effect in other sectors.

The surrender of armed men clearly reduces the extent of the actual fighting while expanding the scope of operations—albeit at the cost of having to assign troops and resources for the transportation and detention of those detained.

Above all, the interrogation of the terrorists detained can produce qualitative intelligence on their strength and deployment, particularly on the system of tunnels. The latter has turned out to be far more extensive and ambitious than the picture obtained before the war through other collection channels.

At the operational level—aimed at achieving the war’s overall goals—Israel is holding a steadily growing number of Hamas operatives also as a lever to negotiate the release of all remaining hostages and hasten the collapse of the organization’s command structure.

Still, the most far-reaching implication is at the symbolic level: effectively debunking the myth of sacrifice, nurtured by the “Axis of Resistance” in recent decades, by putting a spotlight on the patterns of surrender. This can serve as a message both to the Gazans themselves, whose life Hamas was willing to sacrifice unhesitatingly and in great numbers, and to much wider circles in the Arab and Muslim world where this myth has taken hold.

What needs to be done?

As already applied in both Khan Yunis and Shifa, military operations at this stage should be geared towards creating the conditions and situations that will lead Hamas terrorists to lay down their weapons and give themselves up. This should obviously be done with all due caution. To the extent that this can be achieved without risking soldiers’ lives, they should be arrested (the term “prisoner of war” does not apply to terrorists) and their capture used both to generate intelligence and for symbolic effect.

For reasons having to do with Israel’s ongoing dialog with the Americans and other friends in the West, the images disseminated should be carefully monitored: if they are too humiliating, they tend to conjure up the documented abuse of prisoners at the Abu-Ghraib Prison, which seriously damaged the legitimacy of the American campaign in Iraq. Clips of nearly-naked detainees—even if they do reflect the operational need to ensure there are no hidden arms or explosives on them—have had a harmful effect on the IDF’s reputation.

On the other hand, the actual documentation of the acts of surrender to the IDF—accompanied, if possible, by broad statistical data, and, as has already been done occasionally, clips from the questioning of Hamas prisoners—is of profound strategic significance. Indeed, it can be said to pertain to the realm of grand strategy, insofar as it colors the long-term and existential struggle against Islamist totalitarianism and its moral and ideological pretenses. The effective steps Israel can take in this respect are also of importance to its regional standing, insofar as it remains an important part of the “camp of stability” which confronts the ideological, political and military challenges posed by movements such as Hamas (and Hezbollah) to the existing pro-western regimes. 

Originally published by The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

Karl Pfeifer, Journalist Who Documented 20th Century With A Jewish Eye, Dies at 94: A Personal Memoriam

Ben Cohen

The Austrian Jewish journalist Karl Pfeifer. Photo: Austrian Cultural Forum

The death of Karl Pfeifer last Friday marks the end of an unforgettable and unparalleled chapter in the history of Jewish journalism after World War II.

Karl — who passed away in Vienna at the grand age of 94 — was buried on Sunday in the Jewish cemetery in Baden, the Austrian spa town where he was born in 1928 into a secular Jewish family. Karl’s personal odyssey, and later his career as a journalist, spanned the Holocaust, the creation of the State of Israel, the depths of the Cold War and then the implosion of the communist bloc, the subsequent trials of democratization, and the emergence of a renewed, full-throated nationalism in the last decade of his life. But while most people of his generation were spectators at these events, Karl was an active participant in body, mind and soul.

I was proud to call Karl a friend and a mentor. His passing leaves me greatly saddened, yet grateful for the profound impact he had on me and so many other Jewish writers and scholars who knew him to be a fount of experience and insight.

My favorite memory of Karl is a deeply personal one. In August 2014, in the middle of the war between Israel and the Hamas rulers of Gaza, my older son celebrated his Bar Mitzvah in Jerusalem. Following the service at a Sephardic synagogue in the Yemin Moshe quarter, our guests trooped in glorious sunshine to a nearby restaurant, where Karl delivered a joyful, inspirational speech. Listening to him speak, I was struck by how profoundly different his life had been at the age of 13 when compared with my son or, indeed, myself. At the same time, observing Karl standing alongside my son with the walls of the Old City visible in the background, I felt a deep sense of continuity and perhaps triumph that we had arrived at this beautiful moment, knowing that the history that got us there could have been even more punishing.

The next time I saw Karl was about one year later, when he came to New York for the premiere of a German documentary about his life, “Somehow in Between.” The 90-minute film takes the viewer through the milestones of Karl’s life, beginning with his family’s departure from Austria to Hungary in the summer of 1938, shortly after the “Anschluss,” or unification, of the Austrian state with the Nazi Reich. He recalled in the film how, on his first day at a Jewish day school in Budapest, he was called a “dirty Jew” by a passerby who spotted the school’s symbol on his cap. “I was back where I was in 1938,” he reflected. “That evoked a great anger and hate in me. I wasn’t an Austrian, and if the Hungarians called me [dirty Jew], then I wasn’t a Hungarian. Then I want to be a Jew.” Suddenly, he realized that his anxiety at not having mastered the Hungarian language didn’t matter. “It seemed silly to learn this difficult language,” he said (though he did learn it, becoming a key contact for Hungarian dissidents decades later, during the Cold War). “Why should I learn it? I don’t want to stay here.”

In 1943, at the age of 14, Karl — by now a member of the Socialist Zionist organization Hashomer Hatzair — left Hungary for a kibbutz in British Mandate Palestine. A full 36 of his relatives who remained behind were exterminated during the Holocaust. One year after his arrival, he joined the Gadna, an agency that prepared young people for service in the Haganah, the Jewish military organization. By 1946, Karl was serving in the Palmach, the Haganah’s elite fighting force. A few months before Israel’s Declaration of Independence in May 1948, Karl was transferred to a tank unit that escorted convoys carrying provisions through the Negev desert. “You sat in the dark tank, you couldn’t even raise your head, there was just a small opening,” he remembered. One one occasion, he sustained a flesh wound from a bullet to his leg. The tiny shards remained there for the rest of his life; “I still feel them when the weather changes,” he said.

After being discharged from the Haganah, and unprepared for civilian life, Karl drifted back to Europe, settling in Vienna during the early 1950s. He spent the next two decades working in the hospitality industry around Europe before suddenly turning his hand to journalism in the 1970s. The economic crisis at the beginning of that decade meant that Karl lost his job in London, forcing him to return to Vienna. Unemployed, he began traveling to Hungary, then under communist rule, delivering medical supplies from Austria. On one of his trips, he met a dissident sociologist, Tamas Foldvari, who introduced him to a group of intellectuals opposed to the regime. Back in Vienna, he told his friend, the journalist Georg Hoffman-Ostenhoff, some of the stories he’d heard while in Hungary. With Hoffman-Ostenhoff’s encouragement, Karl wrote his first newspaper article using an old Hermes typewriter. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” Karl told his friend anxiously before sitting down to write. “You’ll figure it out,” came the reply.

So began a journalistic career that sustained Karl for half a century. As well as becoming a voice for the Hungarian opposition, he became increasingly concerned with Jewish matters, waging a courageous campaign to broadcast the truth about Kurt Waldheim — the former SS officer who later became Austria’s president and then Secretary-General of the UN from 1972-81. And at the turn of this century, his encyclopedic knowledge of Zionism and of the mutations of antisemitism under communism were invaluable tools in the face of a new anti-Zionist offensive that placed a comprehensive boycott of Israel at the heart of its strategy. Throughout this time, his work was published in general and Jewish news outlets in Austria and Germany, as well as on specialist websites covering antisemitism and extremism and in his weekly column for the Budapest journal Hetek.

In his marvelous profile of Karl published by Tablet magazine in 2011, James Kirchick related how Karl was asked by a group of Austrian teenagers whether, in the wake of the trauma of the Holocaust, he had ever contemplated suicide. “Suicide, never,” he answered. “But occasionally, murder.” Yet as Kirchick pointed out, Karl did not follow the path of vengeance, motivated instead by liberal values “learned through personal experience with the two totalitarianisms of the 20th century.”

Now that Karl is no longer with us, it falls to the rest of us to preserve his contribution and his legacy. Any one of the several antisemitism research institutes that have emerged in the US and Europe in recent years would provide an ideal home for a fellowship in his name, with a focus on the two great passions of Karl’s life: penetrating, investigative journalism and the fight against antisemitism and racism.

May his memory be for a blessing.