ZIONISM FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ITS VICTIMS 91 war for the army to issue a booklet (with a preface by General Y ona Efrati o f the central command) written by the central command's rabbi, Abraham A vid an . containing the following key passage: When our forces encounter civilians during the war or in the course of a pursuit or a raid, the encountered civilians may, and by Halachic standards even must be killed, whenever it cannot be ascertained that they are incapable of hitting us back. Under no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even if he gives the impression of being civilized,31 Children’s literature is made up o f valiant Jews who always end up by killing low, treacherous A ra b s, with names like Mastoul (crazy), Bandura (tom ato), or Bukra (tom orrow). A s a writer for Ha’aretz said (Septem ber 20, 1974), childrens’ books "deal with our topic: the A rab who murders Jews out of pleasure, and the pure Jewish boy who defeats ’the coward swine!' ” Nor are such enthusiastic ideas limited to individual authors who produce books for mass consumption; as 1 shall show later, these ideas derive more or less logically from the state's institutions them selves, to whose other, benevolent side falls the task o f regulating Jewish life humanistically. There are perfect illustrations o f this duality in W eizm ann, for whom such matters immediately found their way into policy, action, detailed results. He admires Samuel Pevsner as "a man o f great ability, energetic, practical, resourceful and, like his w ife, highly ed ucated ." O ne can have no problem with this. Then immediately comes the follow ing, without so much as a transition. “ For such people, going to Palestine was in effect going into a social wilderness— which is something to be remembered by those w ho, turning to Palestine today, find in it intellectual, cultural and social resources not inferior to those o f the Western w orld.” 31 Zionism was all foregrounding; everything else was background, and it had to be subdued, suppressed, lowered in order that the foreground o f cultural achievement could appear as “ civilizing pioneer w ork.” ” A b ove all, the native A rab had to be seen as an irremediable