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Welcome back to the Weekend Holyland Update, where we’re all about the upcomin’ Israeli e-lections number five, brought to you live and with plenty of drive from the southeastern melting pot of Tel Aviv. Today we have new revelations in the Famiglia Netanyahu’s bottomless, shameless greed, a joining of forces on the moderate right, mealymouthed whining on the left, and an empty suit in the middle, trying to grow into the position he has been methodically angling to achieve for a decade.
Starting with the most election-y news, remember how there used to be a bunch of parties bringing up the rear in the polls with the bare minimum of four seats? Well, as of this past weekend there is one fewer. “New Hope” headed by Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar (6 seats in the outgoing Knesset, 4 in recent polls), and “Blue and White” headed by Defense Minister Benny Gantz (8 seats in the outgoing, about the same in the current polls) have announced that they will be merging and running as a bloc, and explicitly declared Benny Gantz a candidate for Prime Minister. This would justify a raised eyebrow or two, what with the new party having only 14 seats in the outgoing, 3 behind PM Lapid’s Yesh Atid and 16 behind Likud (with the gap even larger in current polls). But after a year under a PM with only 6 fractious seats behind him, it sounds less outlandish. Oh, and interestingly – the new bloc did NOT vow not to sit with Netanyahu, unlike each of the constituent parties’ commitments before the last round.
What was immediately clear to me is that is that this union puts whatever is left of Yamina – outgoing PM Naftali Bennett’s party (which will be led by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and not Bennett, since he decided to sit this one out) – in a pretty rough spot. Let’s break the map of the Israeli right-wing down:
On the extreme right you have Religious Zionism (i.e. the Judo-Nazis), led by settlers Bezalel Smotrich (who hoarded over 150 gallons of gasoline to resist the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, but wisely chickened out of using them) and Itamar Ben Gvir (a senior Kahanist** who headed the violent hounding of murdered PM Rabin, once ripping the hood ornament from his car and boasting on national TV that “just as we got to the hood ornament, we can get to Rabin”). Yamina, whether under Bennett (a religious-lite person) or Shaked (secular) is on the complete opposite end of the right-wing spectrum, representing moderates, both religious and secular, not dyed-in-the-wool Nazis. So unless a body was severely radicalized over a year, they ain’t gonna jump ship straight from Yamina to the Nazis, nor vice-versa unless they were suddenly cured of the Nazi disease.
So what remains on the right is of course the mothership of Likud, the two Ultra-Orthodox parties (whose electorates, like that of the Nazis, are mutually exclusive with Yamina), and finally the two that just declared a joint run – whose electorates ARE fungible with that of Yamina.
So Ms. Shaked has to offer right-wing voters, who are relatively moderate and fed-up with Bibi’s corruption and Likud’s gutter populism, something that a much surer bet isn’t. Now that the new bloc refrained from declaring allegiance to the principle of “Never Bibi” – even the ones who want “Soft right that will likely sit with Netanyahu if that’s the coalition to be made” have a better option. While Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton (of the larger Blue and White part of the merger) has declared that the unified list won’t sit with Netanyahu – she ain’t calling the shots, so that’s of limited import.
What is of some horse-race import is that the post-merger polls are in, and while the new merger gets a modest bump over its combined strength in prior polls, and so does Yesh Atid, it does not look good for Bibi – and it looks really bad for Ayelet Shaked and Yamina.
(Previous in parentheses) Likud 34 (34), Yesh Atid (Lapid) 23 (21) the new merged Blue-and-White-New-Hope 14 (12 combined), Judo-Nazis 10 (10), Sephardic Ultra-Orthodox 8 (8), Ashkenazi UO 7 (7), Joint List (most Arab parties, running together as a bloc) 6 (6), Israel Beiteinu (mostly older Russian-speakers and fools who like a corrupt “strongman”) 5 (5), Labor 5 (5), United Arab List (Moderate Islamists, were in the “change coalition”) 4 (4), Meretz 4 (4). Missing cause they ain’t make the cut in the new landscape: Shaked’s Yamina, polling at around 2% (out of the required 3.5% threshold.)
Blocs according to this poll and basically all post-merger polls: Bibi’s bloc: 59. Anyone-but-Bibi Bloc: 55. Holding the key for the latter: the Joint List with 6.
Now, there’s a supposed heavyweight free-agent left unsigned in the market. And you’ll never believe it, not in a million years – It’s a general! A Former IDF Chief of Staff! Ainchy’all shocked, now? Tell the truth.
The new savior, courted by both the new merged party and Lapid’s Yesh Atid, is the umpteenth iteration of the “level-headed and devoted to the public good,” steely-eyed but warm-hearted*** military man. This one’s name is Gadi Eisenkot, predecessor to the current occupation-thug-in-chief. According to the polls, he’ll add around two seats to whoever he joins. According to one poll, if he joins the new merger under his own predecessor in the army, Benny Gantz, he’ll add a whopping three seats, and – this is the important part – one of them at the direct expense of the Likud bloc.
In other electoral news, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz has announced that he will not run to lead Meretz again (though he will likely run for a spot in the party’s list for Knesset.) This leaves MK Yair Golan, a former IDF General, as the only current contestant for the job, after former leader and Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg also said she won’t be running for the top spot this time. Golan is uniformly detested by much of the party’s base, not just for being former IDF, but for being a bumbling he-man ass who is totally out of step with the party’s sensibilities and positions on most issues.
Example? Why, he just provided one this week, and it’s a beaut. “I think being called a “lefty” (“smolan” from the Hebrew “smol” – left) is a slur. It’s like being called a n—-r.” (yes, dumbfuck said that. I know. I just don’t have enough melanin to properly give this man the side-eye that conveys “boy, if you don’t sit yo ass down and stfu…” and actually makes him do it.)
The only reason he was elected on the party’s ticket is another pathetic attempt to shore up security cred for a party that will NEVER have enough of that to people who fret about it. His only saving grace is that he’s willing to brawl with the right and punch them in the mouth – but in the name of what? Shame in being a lefty? Say it loud, boy – I’m left and I’m proud. Of course, these episodes only serve to whip up victimization frenzy on the right. “Didja hear what that white privileged lefty sombitch saaaaaiiiiiid????!!!!!!”
Way I read it, unless a REAL lefty shows up and sweeps the Meretz party faithful up in a whirlwind of conviction and enthusiasm, the only prayer Meretz has with General Golan as a standard-bearer is to join forces with Labor, as it did in round 3 of this prolonged paralysis. Problem is that previous merger yielded disappointing returns and Labor, currently sitting “pretty” at 6, so not actually on the precipice of electoral doom, ain’t eager for the match. “Been there, done that, even the t-shirt sucked” is the vibe coming from the sad vestiges of the party that built this country.
I know, the subtitle promises juicy corruption stuff – not to mention promising a Weekend Holyland Update – but life itself and a summer bug (which hatched for a week, just making me cranky and low energy, before erupting ferrealz with the sniffles and fever ‘n shit) have conspired to delay. Which is good cause that way we got the post-merger polls in time, and Horowitz’s resignation, and…. So lemme post this for the horserace followers, and then I’ll do a part 2 about the defendant’s trial and other stuff, including Joey’s Needless Holyland Adventure. Thank you for flying the Gangsta skies.
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*(marble-jawed, blue-eyed former IDF Chief, and perfect illustration of the old saying – tie a donkey to the “shin-gimel” (the guard post at the gate of a military base) and he’ll make Colonel eventually. So he stayed even longer and made alla way it to the top. Still unimpressive as a pile of warm shit.
** Meir Kahane was the original Judo-Nazi, running for Knesset in the 1980s on a platform of proposed legislation that is 1:1 the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, with just the identity of the master race changed. He was eventually banned from running for overt racism. Ben-Gvir is a long-time disciple of that scumfuck rat. How come he’s allowed to run, then? Cause people are crazy and times are strange.
*** Said donkey from footnote 1 is a bit deficient in the projecting of warmth department, so the role needs to be split.
Welcome back, one and all, to the Weekend Holyland Update. This is installation no. 2 of the GangstaYid Guide to round five of the Israelex, brought to you live and direct (if a bit late for the weekend) from southeastern Tel Aviv.
As foretold by this fine and educational family feature (not solely, I admit), former PM Bennett has indeed decided to win by not playing, and announced that he will not stand for election in the upcomin’, leaving his frenemy and “partner” Ayelet Shaked in charge of the foundering brand called “Yamina.”
So Bennett announced his resignation, making Lapid Prime Minister of the transition government. Bennett was all gracious about it, lauding Lapid as a good friend, a man of his word, and most of all – ready for the job. This, coupled with his decision to not run in the upcomin’, gave rise to speculation about a quiet agreement that should Lapid prevail and form the next government, he just might reserve a ministerial portfolio for his gracious buddy.
Behind the scenes things were less upright and public-minded, as it was revealed that Bennett is seeking a slight bending of the rules, which call for serving for 18 months as PM in order to get a former PM’s pension. Bennett served for just over one year. And it appears that his quiet expectation, or request, that Lapid intervene in the matter on his behalf, went unrequited. The whole thing is kinda classless, as Naftaltuli-boy is a hi-tech millionaire, wort a cool $10M. You expect that kinda thing from Netanyahu (who, as Israel was battered economically by COVID layoffs and furloughs, was busy seeking some arcane tax break) – not from the erstwhile leader of the “change government.”
The Knesset finally managed to disperse itself (i.e., officially call elections and set a date.) There was a fight between the opposition and coalition as to the date of the elex – Oct. 25th lost out to November 1st. There were also last minute attempts to pass three laws that enjoy broad multi-partisan support and overwhelming support among the public – but Likud torpedoed them all, declining to give the hated enemy an “achievement,” even after managing to topple the government and force early elections. One of these laws – requiring electronic ankle bracelets for those released on bail from arrest for domestic violence – finally passed just yesterday (Monday, July 4th. Happy 4th to those celebrating.) The other two – one that would launch Israel’s biggest infrastructure project ever and give the Tel Aviv metro area a metro, and another that would permit sharing criminal records with the U.S., which is a precondition for acceptance to the coveted visa-waiver program, and for which U.S. Ambassador Tom Nides made a highly unusual public plea – remained unpassed, to the glee of the Bibi-cult idiots and the chagrin of pretty much anyone living here.
Speaking of the cult – you know their mindless worship extends to the spawn too, right? Well, last week it was exposed that said spawn, Yair Netanyahu, took to a popular 2nd hand e-commerce site to sell an authentic FC Barcelona Jersey. Problem? Several: 1) Said jersey was a gift to papa, as Prime Minister. Law says you can’t keep those, much less sell them for cash. 2) The imperial family had already listed this jersey, among many other gifts they received and have yet to return, as “lost”. Oh, and dumbfuck (who is very popular among the Nazi right worldwide) sold the damn thing for much less than it costs even in the store, when having been gifted to his pops shoulda doubled its worth.
In “Everyone who simps for Bibi gets burned” news: Corrupt Likud attack-dog and general scumbag Dudi “When we return to power we’ll trample you” Amsalem floated a lil trial balloon, akin to sticking his wet finger out in the wind, when he said that “If we already have 61 (seats in Knesset, a majority out of 120) – the United Arab List will be welcome to join.” This is nothing ground-breaking. Bibi was willing to use Mansour Abbas and his fellow Islamists after the last election too, not just as padding but to get to 61, and promised him more than Bennett-Lapid did. But Mansour knew that Bibi’s promises are written on thin ice. Anyway, Bibi coulda just politely demurred, or even firmly so, having assessed that the reaction from the holy base was unfavorable. But being an asshole, he has to get a dig in, and rejected Amsalem’s idea with harsh words about the UAL being an “antisemitic, terror-supporting party that seeks to destroy Israel) and just had to include something about “not the first time that Amsalem is confused.” Dudi at first played like he has a backbone, going all “wtf dude doing me like that for?!” – but after a day he resumed the fetal position and mumbled his obeisance like a good lil cult drone. Since then Bibi has upped the ante (and the That’s how it goes in North Korea and similar political cultures.
Speaking of North Korea – when the “change government” was first formed, the Bibi cult members on social media took to using NK flags as symbols of protest of the terrible silencing they were experiencing, or some shit. Anyway, over the past 48 hours, all those avi’s have been replaced. Order came down from central, and they all obey in lockstep. Just pathetic.
This post has been so delayed that the never-ending news machine has overtaken it, with the Shireen Abu Akleh murder news, which deserves a separate post, which Goddess willing I might get to tomorrow. But lemme post this before it becomes really old news.
Polls (post Bennett’s withdrawal, previous in parentheses):
Likud 33 (35)
Yesh Atid 21 (21)
Judonazis: 10 (9)
Shas: 8 (7)
Kahol-Lavan 8 (8)
United Torah Jewry: 7 (7)
Joint Arab List: 6 (6)
Israel Beiteinu: 5 (5)
Yamina: 4 (4)
Meretz: 4 (4)
Tikva Hadasha: 4 (4)
United Arab List: 4 (4)
As the sharp-eyed among you will notice, the above adds up to 119 and not 120. Feel free to toss your side the remaining seat. If these are the final results, Bibi will be PM with 63 seats (Likud 34, nazis 10, Shas 8, UTJ 7, and Yamina 4). But of all four parties that poll at the minimum of 4 seats, Yamina is closest to not making the cut. And that’s before the full effect of Bennett quitting sets in, and before a nasty 4-month campaign reminds people how unlikeable Ms. Shaked really is. So there is hope! And as Ian Dury (I think) once said, the hope that springs eternal, springs right up your behind.
Thank you for flying GangstaYid, and please get a visa if you’re gonna visit Israel from the U.S. or vice versa. Coulda been exempt, but Likud said fuck that. Till next time.
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OK, after spending too many hours on a long political post (read here if you care about the whole Middle East thing) I’m gonna try to keep it a lot shorter* on this (less important, sorry NFL Nation) Riley Cooper business.
To recap:
Cooper, a marginally important player on the Philadelphia Eagles (yet one slated to see an increase in his opportunity to shine, due to injuries to others) was captured using the N-word in a belligerent manner, while apparently drunk and attending a concert (in a sea of white people) to a group of black security personnel at the venue.
Cooper immediately apologized with full contrition and no reservation.
Even this was apparently not enough for some in the Eagles locker room, including star running-back LeSean McCoy. Number 25 said he had lost the ability to respect Cooper. In operative terms for the business concern known as the Philadelphia Eagles, this means McCoy will find it very hard to put his body on the line so that Cooper, a man he cannot respect, will get stats and glory and a better contract. This is a major problem for the Eagles business plan going forward in the coming 5-6 months. McCoy is the greater asset to the Eagles business, which in turn is a part of the NFL business. Hence, Cooper had to step away from the Eagles operation so that it could learn to do without him or until such time as his more important teammates feel they can work with him again.
You know what? So far, fine. Really, not grudgingly or “even if so.” What Cooper said is not acceptable and McCoy and any other African-American on the Eagles needs to know they can look Cooper in the eye and not resent his presence or success.
So we hear Cooper will undergo some kind of “counseling” to teach him why what he did was wrong, even tho he did much of what human language is capable of to conveys that he gets it.
My problem: Why someone from the outside? What can someone outside that locker room tell Cooper about why that word is not acceptable even off-team and regardless of industrial relations related to your friggin livelihood’, (and that you’re never anonymous in public as part of an NFL team) that LeSean McCoy and Cullen Jenkins and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Nmadi Asomugha can’t tell him? There’s some intelligent, eloquent dudes in that foursome alone, with more perfectly assertive voices on the team. In the end, it’s those guys, and every other African-American on the Eagles**, that will have to determine that the “therapy” worked and that the issue is over with. Why not cut the middle-man? And not to condescend to Mr. McCoy or anyone else on the Eagles, cause they ain’t the ones that caused this damn mess and don’t need to be talked down to or even talked eye-to-eye to about shit, but they might feel better handling it themselves too.
Just a thought.
*500 and change. Better than 2100+
** Every African-American on the team except #7, who readily admits he ain’t in no position to be passin’ judgment on a motherf-in soul on earth***.
*** Hey, I made it through 2500+ words without dropping inappropriate shit tonight. Give a foul-mouthed jewboy a break!
- In: Occupation | Uncategorized
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Yoram dude wazzup? How was your Sabbath babe? ‘dya see the Euro final or were you busy at work? Reasoמ I ask is I know you got this terribly important and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious new detainee that’s probly keeping you in the office long hours right about now.
You know who I’m talking about. Iyad Jamil al-Jawahari? The Druze doctor from Majdal Shams in the occupied (according to the entire world except Israel) Golan Heights? The one you arrested when he came back with a bunch of Druze students you allowed to study in Syria? The one you told everyone they can’t say a goddamn word about?
Yeah, that one. Yeah I’m talking about him, so listen up: I really don’t know at this point if he’s a full Israeli citizen with a blue ID card, or if he’s perhaps one of the many in the Golan who say “No thanks. We are Syrian nationals under your disputed but accepted de-facto rule. Thanks anyway for the offer.” I also don’t care. The man is not only a human and therefore deserving of certain rights (I know that don’t impress you much). He is also a legal native resident of an area the Empire itself claims as fully annexed and therefore under the full rule of civilian law.
Under this rule of law we have these things called prisoner rights, and they apply from the instant of custody. I don’t care what you say he’s done. He could have undergone super-secret training in contumaciously covert Hizballah camps deep in the inaccessible places of the Syrian desert. (And considering the batting average of the Shin Bet in cases like this, odds are not cood. Statistically, it’s far more likely that he’ll be charged with far lesser violations than whatever it is they’re telling the judge and scaring him with right now).
Where were we? Oh yeah, Yoram my main man: You will report the arrest – not just to his family who were surprised when he didn’t come through the border passing with the other students and were told he was arrested and nothing further – To all of us. Official like. And let us know he’s seen an attorney and has been told at least in general what he’s suspected of and what (in general) kind of proof there is.
Now you’ll notice I’m not saying release the guy immediately. I respect the fact that your job gives you a certain discretion to investigate, apprehend, interrogate and charge people. And I understand that your ferociously friendly court has already given you an extension of custody, and that’s all… if not fine, at least proper. As the poet put it, the ceremony of innocence has not been drowned.
But if you think for a second that we’re gonna let you keep a man – an equal subject of the Israeli Empire, as it were, by its own insistence – in total darkness and not talk about it or mention his name, you are sorely in error, buddy. We are going to be talking about Iyad Jamil al-Jawahari for at least until his full, fair and speedy judicial process is over. Maybe even longer. Depends mostly on you, actually.
Now I hope you notice, bruh, that I’m being respectful to you. Ask my readers and they will assure you that this is not a given. I am sad to say that your predecessor (distant kin of mine, but keep it between us) managed to lose whatever respect his and your disagreeable but necessary position conferred upon him.
But you’re not him, so I’m starting all fresh with you. Announce you’re holding the man and on what general charge and that he’s seen counsel. Today. You’ve already had him for quite a bit longer than the law allows, so don’t be whining that you can’t get no work done like this. If that be the case, we’ll get someone who can.
But it ain’t gonna be like that, is it dawg? We gonna be cool you and me, right? Mos’ def. You go take care of that thing and maybe we’ll hook up after, watch some Olympics and shit. Later homesץ
(This was referred to me by the indefatiguable Richard Silverstein, who unlike Iyad al-Jawahari is not a subject of the Holy Jehovah Empire, and therefore not really motivated by what my man Yoram does or does not allow folks to talk about.)
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More info coming shortly, as Friday obligations allow.
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Like We Just Got Out of the Ghetto
Posted on: April 19, 2012
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When you’re a godless lefty knife-in-the-back-of-the-nation kinda guy, holocaust jokes are kinda part of the territory. In case you’re appalled by the notion and don’t understand how Jews who themselves have lost kin in the holocaust can do that: If you live outside of Israel and have ever had the slightest feeling that the holocaust is misused and overused, stuffed down one’s throat in wrong ways with wrong lessons implied and spelled outright, I can say only this: STFU and be thankful, because you have no idea. What Israel does with the holocaust for external propaganda it does a hundredfold for internal consumption. Besides, spend time in a serious injury ward and you’ll hear the same kind of blackest humor.
That said, and acknowledging that I’ve been known to tell a black shoah joke here and there, I must insist that it is not out of delight in contrariness and shock value that I say:
We Israelis must sharply stop with the holocaust ritual.
Definitely the way it is done now. We didn’t really need the study just recently published, showing that “Voyages of Life” trips (heritage high school trips to the death camps in Poland) have adverse mental effects on the minors who take them. A cursory glance at the talkbacks on any major news site would show much the same.
The anecdotes are too numerous to list, and extend far beyond the “It’s 1938, Iran is Hitler” fixation of our Prime Minister. From the one on former Knesset Speaer Avraham Burg’s book, about a Jew who told him “I can’t take a train when I go to Europe. Being in a train there brings it all back to me” and when asked where his parents came from said “Iraq” (where Jews were not deported by train in the holocaust). And more recently, a radio host on Israel’s military station stated that to her any fair-skinned blond-haired youth has a “Hitler Jugend” look, and that “They” (speaking of Danes, the People of the lefty scum who dared assault an officer’s rifle with his face) “are born anti-semites and die anti-semites.”
The Noble Danish People, for those of who don’t know and others who need an update on the weather in this reality, are the only nation on earth to be collectively awarded a “Righteous Among the Nations” medal from Yad VaShem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum. Quick recap: In a short national effort, spanning all walks of Danish society from the royal palace to the street sweepers, they smuggled 90% of their Jews to neighboring neutral and free Sweden in fishing boats. The country’s universities announced a week’s vacation on some pretext so that students could enlist in the effort. Of 426 Danish Jews who were captured by Nazis and transported east, 70% survived. They survived because the government of His Majesty Christian X sent food packages to Treisenstadt every week. But never mind. To some insane person on Israel’s national military station the Danes are inherently antisemites.
I too had a funny (in a scary way) experience in the same vein. I’m arguing occupation with a supposed Israeli who goes by AsoldiersMom on twitter. The chronological scope of the exchange or any other I’ve ever had with her never ever got earlier than the founding of Israel. To my memory, it was all 90s and 21st century. Suddenly I see her calling all her followers: “Join me in blocking holocaust-denier @AbuKedem !!!” She was dead serious, too.
The Holocaust, to the average Israeli nationalist, is a cart blanche. The ultimate, evergreen, self-replenishing get-out-of-jail card. “I don’t wanna hear it, I’ve had a holocaust and whatever I do is to protect me from it ever happening again, and therefore justified. If you disagree, you support the holocaust.”
From proof of a morally viable justification for creating a state at the expense of the natural rights of a native people, the holocaust has long since become a catch-all excuse for Israel’s right to be the neighborhood punching bag who suddenly shot up in height and packed on much muscle, but is still the traumatized little boy thinking only of raging vengeance for all those unhappy childhood years.
And so, from a cure to the disease that begat the holocaust (a cure conceived well in advance of that monstrous climax) the Zionist endeavor has become enthralled to a vendetta for the years of suffering. The purpose of this state is not to allow its citizens the normal whole life that they felt barred from fully experiencing in exile, but to defy, to prove we’re still around, to lash about on all sides and prove how our rage and our refusal to listen to anyone else have no limits, because our pain has no bounds and nothing can compare to it.
This is the behavior of a wounded animal. But how is it that this sort of reaction is still here? Wounds that do not kill tend, after all, to heal, right? Exactly. In order for the wound to remain open, so it can produce the same reaction of self-justifying rage, to remind that we’re still mad with pain, we need to keep invoking it. We need to brainwash people with the pain and compel high school students and their families to undertake the expensive burden of the holocaust tours, which become drunken romps (as 17 year old excursions tend to) and practice in hating gentiles and nurturing the sense that everyone wants to kill us everywhere all the time.
The actual still living victims of the wound, of course, can be left to spend their remaining days in abject poverty and squalor. So much so that when after years of outrage then-PM Olmert managed to pass a $23/month increase in the pensions of holocaust survivors, he had the nerve to describe it as a historical rectification of injustice, when in reality the sum added – and the new sum combined – wouldn’t suffice for his rectal hygiene budget. Because the sole drive we derive from the wound is not correction, healing or some universal lesson about the human condition that could ever to apply to ourselves from any other angle but the absolutely wronged party, whose one desire is revenge and whose right to execute it trumps all.
Another example from Twitter: I’m arguing with this funny right-winger journalist named Avishai Ivri who sometimes has me on his very right-wing radio show as a token lefty. And then he delivers this gem:
“Anyone who believes they’d survive a single night here without IDF soldiers armed to their teeth around their bed is indulging in sweet delusions.”
The problem with this statement is not that it is factually wrong. It’s that save for scattered exceptions, the state and its navigators have nurtured the situation necessitating this from the very start. One of the first critiques the Palestinians used to hurl at the newly-established Israel was that it was a grotesque garrison state surrounded by barbed wire. Our response has always been “Stop making us and we’ll stop. We ain’t doing this for fun.” But in light of the passing years, one has to wonder.
Zeev Jabotinski (the founder of the Israeli right-wing, in other words no lefty) gave the corpus of Zionist thought the concept of the Iron Wall. According to this, there would be a period following establishment of independence during which we would need to create and maintain an impenetrable barrier (the iron wall) which will prevent our defeated neighbors from regaining that which we took, as many times as needed to convince them that our presence is irreversible; However, even Jabotinski’s militant “you need men on that wall” vision stipulated that when that wall had achieved its purpose, we would be able to make peace with them and live as states live all over the world with their neighbors – with ties of trade, culture, tourism and mutual loathing ventilated at sporting events.
The thing is that somewhere along the line, the wall went from means to end. Even when the wall is made of space-age stainless steel with uranium titties (according to foreign sources of course…), many refuse to stop laying more and more bricks, more supports and foundations and laser beams to zap anyone even looking at the wall. Maybe that’s how the Tower of Babel was built? Maybe people built a levee against the river tide (a laudable precaution) and then just kept on building way after exceeding the height of even the most mythical killer flood waves?
Must we really, just to live here safely, hold two million people under a regime in which we see it as perfectly legitimate to use them as unwitting props in live-ammo military drills? To keep them firmly under our heels with a Stasi-like web of coerced informants numbering in the many thousands? To enjoy such obvious and overwhelming superiority over them that we can do all that, plus keep another million and a half under a quiet siege, half cut off from the world, hardly feel any consequence in our daily lives – and still treat every vain attempt by the vanquished to bite through the IDF boot at the foot stepping on their windpipe as an existential threat. Must we really live like this until further notice? Other states, with equally annoying neighbors and no such military superiority, manage to do without this and only we can’t? That way madness lays.
There’s a famous Zen story about the great teacher Tanzan, who was traveling with another monk when they come upon a pretty young girl afraid to cross an overflowing brook. Tanzan picks her up, carries her across the river and continues with his friend. The other guy after a while says “Why did you do that? You know we monks are not supposed to have any contact with women, particularly not young and beautiful ones.” Tanzan replies: I left the girl on the bank. Are you still carrying her?
Even the biggest trauma, if it is survived, needs to be left behind. This does not mean to forget. As long as there is a State of Israel (even in its impending one-state incarnation) it must include a Yad VaShem. The memory of the holocaust and its lessons must be taught, but there is a limit, and that is way back on our 6. So stand up straight, dammit, and stop acting like we just stepped out of the ghetto. We’ve grown a bit since then, and we can be proud of that.
So lets stop building the wall and start punching some windows and doorways in it, let some light and air in, maybe a neighbor now and then. It’s not healthy to live alone in the dark all the time. We do intend to actually LIVE here, right?
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