2084: A nightmare

After seventy years of constant harassment by their neighbors in the Middle East, the Israelis decided to move on. In 2018 they purchased several big cattle stations in Australia’s North-West, and with the enthusiastic support of the Australian government, they moved en masse there, establishing a territory-state, called New Israel, which joined the Australian Commonwealth, its local capital city being New-Jerusalem. By 2038, they rebuilt the cities that were left behind in Palestine and restarted a productive life within the commonwealth of Australia, their flag proudly displaying Blue Stripes and the Star of David, along with the Southern Cross.

It all went surprisingly well.

The Aussies welcomed the influx of “nice” new blood and they had plenty of arid land to cultivate and exploit using new technologies of desalination and drip-irrigation. In a short time span of twenty years, The Territory of New Israel helped make Australia one of the most important science and technology centers in the world. About 5.5 million Israeli Jews and two hundred thousand Israeli Arabs made the move, and they now were proud “Austrisraelis,” enjoying peace, and quiet, and autonomy Down Under.

The Bahaii’s and the Ahmadiyya Moslems came too, and they relocated their shrines in New-Israel. The Israeli Druze also joined the exodus along with several other ethnic groups who lived peacefully in Israel since 1948. The Jews moved a few old stones from their Temple to rebuild around them a Disney Style “Western Wall” in New Jerusalem, in memory of their old-Holy Land. They brought along the Dimona Nuclear Reactor with all the surrounding installations, transforming Australia over-night into a Nuclear super-power. They also carried with them military gear and installations, that were readily integrated into the Australian Army.

And what happened in old Israel and Palestine? Well, the vast majority of Muslim-Palestinian citizens of Israel stayed put, along with the Nationalist-Fundamentalist Settlers and the Ultra-religious Anti-Zionist Jews, who could not, for various reasons ranging from patriotism to religion, part from the holy city of Zion- Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Also, a few Christians, mostly Franciscans, Carmelite and Dominican Monks, stayed on to guard the Holy places of Christianity. The Israeli leaders pleaded with the Vatican, and the EU to take care of them, and asked the UN to make sure the Jewish population remaining on the Land would be unharmed, and, of course, got the appropriate solemn commitments and promises from them, as well as from the Palestinian Authority Leaders, who were all too eager to exercise their rule over the “regained” Land.

The officials of the Palestinian Authority took over the land, and rejoiced in getting back the Holy Land and full rights for their new Arab Nation. Their only worry was that, from now on, they wold have to make do without the massive inflow of financial support of the EU and America and the UN, and start to set up a functioning state, and a sustainable economy in order to feed the millions of poor returning refugees, and the population that remained in Israel after 1948. Of course the Sheiks of the Oil-Rich Emirates made pledges of support, but the PA had, in the past, quite a disappointing experience with their bombastic, but mostly meaningless and worthless pledges and promises. And now, with the dissolution of UNRWA, there were hundreds of thousands of unemployed to be accommodated and lots more people to feed.

The fanatic fundamentalist Muslim organization, Hamas, quickly took credit for having been so successful in harassing the Jews into abandoning their holy and historic Homeland. Their happiness was, however, a bit over-shadowed by the now missed opportunity to slaughter some more “Jewish pigs,” and by the too sudden disappearance of such a good enemy to hate. They promised themselves to finish the job in the near future, once Islam took over Australia too.

Almost immediately after the Israeli exodus, fights erupted between the PA’s Fatah officials and their Hamas Muslim brothers due to disagreements about how to divide the turf, and what kind of state the Arabs would have in their newly liberated land. The Muslim Brothers of Hamas started to kill anyone who was not of the right opinion and/or religion. This elicited some protests, but not too forceful ones, from the Vatican, and some others, who were a bit annoyed that the Christian Holy Places in Nazareth and Bethlehem and Jerusalem were torched, and their monks crucified and beheaded. The religious and anti-Zionist Jews of Jerusalem were amassed near the Western Wall and murdered, and a powerful explosion destroyed the last remains of the Second Temple: the holy Western Wall.

By an unfortunate accident of miscalculation on the part of Hamas’ engineers, along with the Western Wall went the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque too. They were quick to accuse the departed Israelis of rigging the mosques with powerful explosives, prior to their departure, and solemnly swore to carry out revenge and terror attacks on Israeli targets everywhere. They also promised to rebuild a New Holy Al-Quds, and proceeded to work, immediately demolishing all vestiges of Christian, Jewish and Armenian presence there, and to make it the holy spiritual center of the Palestinian Caliphate.

The moderate Palestinian Authority politicians, who once hoped to establish a secular and democratic state in Palestine, fled for their lives, and Norway immediately offered them political refugee status with nice pensions for life. Nationalist Jewish militias, “the New Maccabees,” put up a fight for some time, but were slowly decimated, and those who could, fled to America and Australia.

By 2048, the land of Palestine looked just like Iraq and Syria: daily car-bomb explosions claimed hundreds of dead and wounded, as Sunni Moslems and Shiite Moslems and Alawites traded slaughter and death and rape and robbery, in their holy war for supremacy. They all blamed the departed Jews, and America, and Colonialism for the dire mess and poverty they were left in. CNN and BBC and Al Jazeera just briefly reported on the situation in these places, and the world soon got used to the daily bad news out of Palestine. In time, the European and American crowds stopped being interested in the situation, now that there were no more Jews that they could enjoy blaming and demonstrating against. Journalists had no novelties to report, violence in Muslim countries being all too commonplace, hence many of them were fired, and some found boring jobs in banks, street-sweeping and gas-stations worldwide.

In the meantime, the New Israel developed steadily and made huge progress in science and agriculture and the arts. The literary scene flourished, more books were printed than ever before, the theaters were full of patrons. The doctors and biologists in the five big hospitals of the New Israel carried out top-rate research in cancer biology, they used surgical robots with lasers to save lives, and invented new drugs. The seven universities of New Israel, now teaching in English, although Hebrew continued to be widely spoken in the New Aussie territory, became world class centers of learning. The New Historians enjoyed writing books about how the Jews used to oppress Arabs in the old Israel. However these topics did not get as much attention as before, and their academic reputation faded.

The Aboriginal Australian people saw the flourishing land and towns and universities the theaters and sports facilities that sprung up in their desert land, and could not believe their eyes. The farms that the Israeli bought used to be one vast desert land, with occasional herds of cattle grazing in peace, and they could walk around and smoke and gaze at the southern skies in peace. They liked it that way, and the Aussie owners didn’t mind them wandering around. The Austrisraelis too didn’t mind or hurt them at all, but now roads crisscrossed the land, there were green parks everywhere, and modern, tall concrete-and-glass buildings obstructed their views. Some people were quick to advise the Aboriginals to revolt and demand their rights: after all, these lands belonged to their forefathers for tens of thousands of years.

On the 26th of May 2084, in Perth, the Aboriginal Liberation Organization (A.L.O) was born. CNN and BBC and Al Jazeera reported the event in lofty detail. The governments of South Africa, Venezuela, the ISIS-Caliphate of Baghdad, Iran and Russia immediately recognized the rights of the Aboriginal people for a Homeland in the occupied territories of New Israel, and while Australia was trying in vain to explain that all this is an internal affair, the UN quickly passed resolution after resolution defining the Australian Territory of New Israel a rogue state, to be dismantled and immediately destroyed, in order to ensure the legitimate rights of the Aboriginal people…

… at this point I woke up: the year is not 2084 but 2014; we are still in the Middle East, and Hamas’ terror rockets are raining upon us. The Iron Dome intercepts most of them, our army is fighting the Hamas in Gaza, murderous terrorists emerge from underground tunnels like rats, and death and destruction scenes shout at you from all the screens, and the whole world demonstrates against us.

What a feeling, oh, what a feeling to be back in real life!