Back to the Future. Did Anything Become Better?

Today it is April 30th, 1978.

My father opened the tent after a good night’s sleep somewhere in the desert near Palmyra. As a disciplined soldier, he dropped to his knees and began to sing the Dutch national anthem, the Wilhelmus. We laughed. It was absurd and beautiful at the same time. My father kneeling in front of a tent in Palmyra, Syria. An image burned into memory. Only years later did we understand that this image would never fade, and that the place itself would one day be erased.

My parents were in Syria on a mission for Israel. I never knew the details. Children are not told such things. But I felt the tension in my mother’s body. I still remember it clearly. Two police officers in civilian clothes approached my mother while they carried the famous bag. The bag no one was allowed to touch. Inside were documents, money, or something else Israel needed inside Syria. Something important enough to risk everything.

Luck played its role. My mother was beautiful, and men are still men. The officers were distracted when she spoke to them, confident and calm, while my brother climbed the ruins nearby, collecting Roman pottery shards as if this were a holiday. My mother even asked the officers if it was allowed to take the shards. They said yes and walked away.

A close call. One mistake and history would have ended there for us.

Years later, Palmyra, one of the most ancient and beautiful archaeological sites in the world, would be deliberately destroyed by Islamic State. Not collateral damage. Erasure. History blown apart because it did not fit an ideology.

In 1978, Lebanon was tense. When was it not? Israel lived under constant terror attacks, explosions, and suicide bombings carried out by Arab militants. Syria was ruled by the old Assad. Without illusions, it was a dictatorship. People feared the regime. But people lived. Women walked the streets freely. Religious fanaticism was kept in check. Minorities existed. Life, while controlled, was still life.

What came later was a thousand times worse.

After the rise of Islamic State and the collapse of order, hundreds of thousands were slaughtered. Then Assad’s successor fled to Russia, and Syria fell into the hands of a new ruler with roots in Al Qaeda. Ethnic cleansing followed. Druze communities were attacked. Christians were murdered. Alawites, Yazidis, Kurds, Armenians, and other minorities were targeted, expelled, or wiped out. Syria became a powder keg that finally exploded.

The refugees who fled to Europe do not want to return. That alone says everything.

Sometimes I ask myself a question that makes people uncomfortable. In Arab societies, is dictatorship sometimes more compatible with reality than chaos disguised as freedom?

In 1978, we also traveled to Egypt. On the streets, you saw women in skirts, modern women, smiling, confident, living what looked like normal lives by Western standards. We visited the pyramids. Back then, you climbed them. You entered through a crude opening into a dark chamber. Nothing spectacular, but it was real. You felt history in your bones.

In 2010, I returned. I was in shock. Egypt had become unrecognizable. Women hidden behind burqas, fear in their eyes, no joy in the streets. The pyramids had changed too. There was now a polished entrance at ground level, beautifully lit, hieroglyphs painted on the walls, golden statues, concrete sarcophagi, tourists staring in awe.

To me, it was clearly fake.

The tour guide insisted it was authentic. I did not believe it. I asked an old man in Arabic whether the original entrance I remembered had been sealed and whether this new one was artificial. The old man admitted it was true. Too many tourists damaged the original chamber, so it was closed.

Modern times have perfected one thing. We replace reality with replicas and call it preservation. History is rewritten, polished, and sold.

And then there is Israel. My home in 1979. The place where I was so very happy.

People were proud. Patriotic. The kibbutzim were exactly what they were meant to be. Collective, idealistic, deeply socialist in the purest sense. Israel felt like one warm, stubborn, loud family.

From December 2022, I watched in horror as Israelis tore themselves apart in the streets. Demonstrations screaming about judicial reform, but in reality driven by hatred toward a prime minister. Society fractured. Secular against orthodox and visa versa. Left against right. Chaos dressed up as moral righteousness. The result was October 7.

What we learned, too late, is that Israel’s enemies do not care who you vote for. Peace activists from the southern kibbutzim were murdered next to right wing supporters, Arabs, and foreign workers. Hamas killed without distinction. Ideology did not protect anyone.

When I close my eyes, I am back in 1978. I hear my father singing the Dutch anthem on Queen’s Day in the Syrian desert. When I open my eyes, I am back in the future.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)