Thomas Wictor

Since so many people have asked, tonight I’ll explain why I write posts on Pallywood. I have a very specific motivation. And, because of my burgeoning reputation as a madman, I’ll explain why I believe that maybe—just maybe—this was my purpose in life.

First of all, I’m not religious. I’m a theist, which means I believe in God. Probably I’m a monotheist, but I can’t say for sure. If you’re interested, I wrote about and diagrammed my beliefs. I call my version of God the Planner, and the system we live in is the Fate Block.

I believe that the purpose of life is to improve. In order to improve, free will is paramount. Therefore I don’t believe that the Planner intervenes to save us or to cause us harm. When an airline falls out of the sky, it’s chance, not part of God’s plan. If you survive the crash but the person sitting next to you doesn’t, it’s random.

God doesn’t intervene, because that would rob us of free will. but I believe that when our perceptions are honed enough, we can see signs that we’re doing the right thing. I believe that the Planner and the System are benign, and I believe that we have multiple chances at life.

The main reason I believe in reincarnation is that on November 6, 1987, I met a woman who I recognized and remembered, even though she was a complete stranger. She’s the Cardinal Ghost of my memoir Ghosts and Ballyhoo.

I’m not what you’d call GQ material; my hips and shoulders are the same width, and I have a tendency to be fat. This was one of the most physically beautiful women I’d ever met, yet when I shook her hand, I relaxed. I became whole.

There you are, I thought. Where have you been? I’ve missed you so much!

Everything about her was familiar: her voice, her smell, her laugh, her skin, her eyes. My arms remembered what it was like to be around her. I had a memory of sitting on a bed, resting my cheek against her belly as she stroked my hair.

At that moment, I knew we’d get together and continue our shared existence, the way we had so many times before. Though the first year was very rocky, due to our drinking and her incessant testing, I finally convinced her that I was trustworthy. We then had three years of what I’d say was near-perfect harmony.

She was a performer—a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. It’s eerie how much Róisín Murphy resembles her in this video.

Physically they’re identical, but the mannerisms are all the same too. Carmen was a true weirdo.

In August of 1992, soon after my thirtieth birthday, I told Carmen the details of my extremely traumatic background. This is a subject I no longer discuss, except with mental-health professionals, clerics, and a few laypersons who can handle it. Carmen couldn’t handle it, and our relationship ended that afternoon. I was sure that I was supposed to be with her for the rest of my life, so I hung on for a year, until she drove me away by becoming the third-cruelest person I’ve ever encountered.

She hadn’t signed up for my baggage. The analogy I use is a person who gets seasick when she takes boat trips. She can’t help it. Some of us can’t accommodate darkness. It’s based on our individual temperament. In 1996 I wrote her a letter apologizing for everything I’d ever said and done to hurt her, and she apologized for the year of torture.

“None of what I said was true,” she wrote. By that time she was married.

A very intelligent person once told me, “Even if you’re lucky enough to find your soul mate, it doesn’t mean that both of you will be ready for each other at the time.”

After twenty years of my Carmenless existence, I came up with my own maxim: “The mandate that two people are supposed to be together can expire.”

It has to do with the Fate Block, which incorporates both destiny and free will. Since we’re all different, the Planner lays out specific opportunities tailored to our individual selves. That’s destiny. Free will is the choices we make when given these opportunities. I believe our choices create new opportunities, but they also close doors.

We can lose the person we were supposed to be with. Forever. It’s just how the system has to work. Free will is paramount.

Was I destined to write posts on Pallywood?

From the age of four, I was interested in weaponry and munitions. At the same time, I couldn’t stand the idea of war. I didn’t own a gun until I was forty-four. My elderly parents lived next door to me; more accurately, I lived next door to them. They let me stay rent free in this house in exchange for taking care of them. It was all unspoken. I’d lost the Cardinal Ghost, so I didn’t care about dating or socializing. The arrangement with my parents allowed me to teach myself long-from writing. I published a fantastic novel called Chasing the Last Whale, a black comedy about love and suicide in contemporary wartime America.

It’s actually an extremely funny book. One of the plot twists involves a Palestinian suicide bomber, which is very odd, considering my current relationship with Pallywood and the debunking thereof.

Back to weaponry and munitions.

I’d seen the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and since we live in earthquake country, I knew that a giant disaster was likely in the works. My father had purchased a gasoline-powered generator, which he said he’d hook up to the three houses my parents owned.

“We’ll have lights and refrigerated food while everyone else is up shit creek,” my father said.

“What do you think will happen here in gangbanger territory when all the power goes out and suddenly there are three houses lit up like beacons?” I asked my father.

He put his chin the air. “Then I’ll stand guard with a ball bat.”

Seventy-seven years old, with heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, he’d hold off these guys.

With a baseball bat.

I very reluctantly bought a .40-caliber carbine and later a .357 magnum revolver. Both are loaded at all times with what are essentially explosive bullets. But I don’t like my guns. They don’t make me feel strong or safe or proud or anything. I can’t imagine firing an explosive bullet into someone’s face.

But I would’ve done so to protect my parents, and I will if anybody shows up here to give me grief over my Pallywood posts. Without hesitation. I believe in preemptive action. If I see you in my garden or peering through my windows, I’m going to shoot you until you stop moving. I’ve paid my victim-dues. No more.

So I’m a guy who knows everything about weapons and munitions but doesn’t like them. My three books on military history were total failures. Although I’m the planet’s only expert on World War One flamethrowers, nobody ever checks with me to see if something they’re writing is correct. And it’s never correct! British archeologists found a Livens “Large Gallery” Flame Projector buried on the Somme battlefield, and the TV show Time Team had a copy made.

All the articles I read about the weapon and its use were inaccurate. A French military historian asked me if anyone connected with the dig or the show had contacted me.

Of course not. Why would they? I have no pedigree, and each of my books had disappeared into a wormhole. It seemed that those four decades of study were a waste of time. For several years I was depressed and angry that my military books were ignored or denigrated.

Why I write my Pallywood posts

I write them for Israelis. They’ve been much sinned against, and too many of them have been made to question the integrity of the Israeli Defense Forces. I hate injustice. Suddenly I can use my encyclopedic but otherwise worthless knowledge to debunk lies and help Israelis fight back with the truth.

Maybe that was the purpose of my life. I never understood why it was so important for me to learn everything I could about weapons, munitions, and military tactics. But I’ve received hundreds of messages from Israelis who’ve told me that my posts have allowed them to see the reality of Pallywood for the first time.

People ask, “But why the Israelis? What’s so special about them?”

Well, they’re goddam LOUD, for one thing. In a Tokyo guesthouse I was awoken by the biggest screamfest I’d ever heard. It sounded like two hundred mortal enemies arguing. I went down to the kitchen and saw about twenty young men and women sitting at the table, eating. Every single one was shouting in what I knew was Hebrew. They were traveling together and were just having dinner. Nobody was angry. But they were all talking, and none seemed to be listening.

It was, frankly, horrific. I got adrenaline rushes listening to it. Their screams rose and fell in waves, like an entire stadium full of dangerous, revved-up sports fans. Each Israeli seemed to be shouting in eight or nine voices. I never knew so few people could make so much noise.

Is this real? I don’t know.

Other than their loudness and their way with words, what makes Israelis special is that their armed forces are the most moral in the world. Armed forces kill, yes. They unintentionally kill innocent civilians. The Allies killed 20,000 French civilians on D-Day. But the IDF is unique in that it takes more precautions than any military force. The IDF fights under unbelievably strict rules of engagement, and it fights enemies who break every single law of armed conflict.

Yet the Israelis still win.

Some American Jews have written to me that they find my support for Israel “condescending.” Well, I never said I supported namby-pamby, feckless, conflicted American Jews. I support Israel. Specifically, Israelis and the Israeli Defense Forces. To my confused fellow citizens, if you see admiration as condescension, that means the whole self-hating thing has taken over your lives. You’ve internalized how Jew-haters feel about you. Time to see a psychiatrist.

Within the context of armed forces—organizations that kill people and break things—the IDF is the most moral in human history. That doesn’t mean they’re angels or saints. However, they are without question the most moral troops on earth.

So I write my posts for Israelis, to prove to them that the world is wrong, dishonest, stupid, antisemitic, insane, and ignorant. The world is a tedious cartoon. My goal isn’t to change the world’s mind, because the world doesn’t have a mind to change. Nor do I want to become famous. I can’t wait for Operation Protective Edge to end so that I can sink back into obscurity.

But having experienced terrible injustice, it pleases me that I can use my esoteric knowledge to show Israelis that they have nothing for which they should be ashamed.

On the contrary, they should be proud of their fighters. They’re magnificent.