West Bank rabble rousers should be forced to see Avatar

The film "Avatar" is about a corporate research expedition to a planet called Pandora, where a god is found different than ours, a "green" universal deity of which flora and fauna are a part, a god we once knew and today perhaps are lacking.

The beginning of the concept of the commandment to worship one god is attributed to the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt during the 14th century BCE. He instituted a new religion based on one god, Aten, who was the light revealed by the sun. Akhenaten did away with the family of gods and cut Aten off from the biological cycle of birth, sexuality and death, because he did not want him to be subject to the system of laws that preceded him. To these characteristics, Moses added the separation between the deity and the world and nature. The deity is not part of nature, but created it and rules it at will, for or against humankind.

"Avatar" ostensibly takes us one step backward and returns the deity to nature. Eywa, the goddess of the inhabitants of Pandora, is nature. This concept is condescendingly decribed nowadays as primitive, but it is this concept that maintains the system of laws that allows every component in nature to exist. It is about a culture that shows personal and communal responsibility because it recognizes the right of the other and the different to live. This culture makes do with the fulfillment of its basic physical and spiritual needs (the "greenest" law of all) based on the deep understanding of the interdependence of all components of existence.
In contrast to the inhabitants of Pandora, humans renounce their responsibility to preserve the thin line of the earth's climate that allows their existence. Believers among them pin their hopes on God, who supposedly rules nature, and assume that God sustains the earth in exchange for their "worship." However, others believe that technology will create a bubble of human existence in engineered colonies in the heart of the earth, when natural conditions no longer allow the human race to exist on the surface.
Eywa's ability to subdue the powers of the corporation - which is trying to destroy her with its technological superiority - by calling on all living things linked by trillions of connections, exhibits her power in all its magnitude. Eywa does not do this because she has taken a side - to fight the invaders from earth - but because they chose to disrupt Pandora's harmony and equilibrium of nature.

This is not an earthly deity granting grace only to his believers and raining down fire and brimstone on the "heretics" of the other faith. Rather, this is a god that promises that balance of everything will not be impaired and gives the value of universalism unimaginable depth - far beyond the notions of this or that group of believers on earth. There is no "Chosen People," "Messiah Son of God" or "Last Prophet" on Pandora, but rather the sum total of life.

Thus Avatar becomes a must-see in rehabilitation programs for people who set fire to synagogues, churches and mosques, desecrate graves and smash ancient statues. It's also a must-see for those who still believe that "we must save the earth" and do not understand that it will continue to survive even after we have destroyed its ability to provide us with the necessary conditions for survival.

If the security forces try to prosecute the rabble-rousers who hide behind the term "price tag" - war on the rule of law and the decisions of elected institutions via "pogroms" on Palestinians and their property - I would recommend that they be required, as part of their punishment, to view "Avatar" every day.
Haaretz