Enemy of the State
Apparently the relative calm between the government and Yesha residents creates boredom for some people who feed off the action of confrontation. A group of right-wing anarchists has found itself a new enemy. Zambish.
In the dark of night, its members slash his tires and during the daytime they print posters against him.
Zambish, himself, very much in character, remains quiet. He hasn't even reported the vandalism against him to the police. But the time has certainly come for the rest of the world to raise its voice in protest. It is unthinkable that silence be construed as sympathy or even empathy for the tire-slashers.
The attacks on he who brought a thousand times the mobile homes to Yesha's communities than anyone else, began as a result of rumors of his willingness to compromise with the government on the issue of the outposts.
Now it's possible to disagree with compromises on this issue and even to argue about Zambish's refraining from publicizing such discussions, but it's difficult to tolerate the infantile analogy of Zambish to Arik Sharon or the call for him to quit his tireless efforts on Yesha's behalf.
Yesha without Zambish is like Tel Aviv without Dizengoff, Haifa without Abba Hushi and Netanya without Oved Ben-Ami.
If Zambish reached the conclusion that compromises must be made regarding a few outposts, then maybe it is impossible not to make such compromises.
Have people forgotten that a significant number of outposts were created specifically for this kind of compromise to be made without significantly damaging the essential Yesha?
The last outpost agreement between Yesha and the anti-Yesha government, during the time of Barak, was a result of typical Zamish thinking. Whoever doesn't believe or understand this concept would do well to ask Dror Etkis or Talia Sasson. To this very day they say that "Zambish is one of the most dangerous people to anyone who believes that settlement in Yesha is dangerous." Or, in the words of Professor Sprinzik, z"l, a recognized "expert" in settler issues, "Not a day goes by that he (Zambish) does not build something new (in Yesha)."
Since then, nine years have passed, but Sprinsik's words remain accurate. Not a day goes by that Zambish does not create something new somewhere in Yesha. One day people will even describe the building Zambish managed to eke out during the Olmert government, underneath the very noses of the leftist hunters who hound his very step day and night but, at least, refrain from slashing his wife's tires during cover of night and do not hide their identities.
Everyone knows who Yariv Oppenheim is, but no one (officially) knows who "The Committee to Stop Collaboration with the Enemy" is.
One of the posters slandering Zambish claims that the "elders embarrass the young" – revealing, if not the biological age of his persecutors, then at least their emotional or developmental age. Fifty-four years old Zambish is exactly the same age as the raven-haired army commander, Gabi Ashkenazi, and Daniel Ben-Simon (the Labor Party's Raanana champion). This is old? An elder statesman, perhaps, but old?
(As an aside, Zambish works today exactly as he did ten and twenty years ago and will, please G-d, continue to work ten years hence: he builds, he moves, he pushes, he bulldozes and plants.)
True, Zambish doesn't believe in all sorts of methods offered by his critics but not a single one of those critics offers a more efficient method of protest against those who wish to uproot Jewish residents. In Hazon David, Kfar Darom, Sa-Nur and Amona – IDF bulldozers had the last word.
In the battle over the shuk in Hebron, a battle organized and carried out by the most militant on the right, the final results were no different. The shuk fell just as Neve Dekalim fell, more or less. And no one can guarantee that Migron won't fall in a similar way should Zambish's methodology be replaced by one willing to countenance no compromise or should Zambish himself be replaced.
This old man remains more useful to Yesha than all the young "heroes" who slash tires and disappear into the darkness…or those who send them on their errand.
As is true for much of what they claim to "know", what more proof is needed that those who criticize Zambish most, know him and his usefulness least than their call for Zambish to "hang up his shoes". Shoes? Zambish?
(Zambish wears sandals all year around)
