Israel’s right have eyes but do not see, have ears but do not hear
Israel’s right-wing politicians are trying to divert blame for its isolation onto the country’s liberal critics.
By Carlo StrengerFuture historians will debate how Israel’s leadership could have been so blind. They will wonder how it was possible that Israel - for 43 years - didn’t realize what David Ben-Gurion saw a few weeks after the Six-Day War: that the occupation of the West Bank was a catastrophe for Israel.
They will wonder even more what the government of Benjamin Netanyahu had in mind when he allowed the destruction of the Shepherd Hotel, the eviction of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan; they will wonder what was happening to the 18th Knesset, in which parliamentarians were competing with each other with their anti-democratic legislation.
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Defense Minister Ehud Barak, right, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. |
| Photo by: Tess Scheflan / Jini |
They will be struck by the total blindness of these parliamentarians and ministers to Israel’s place in the world, and their total lack of vision for what kind of state Israel would be in the future. All they seem to care about is to establish their patriotism through ‘Judaizing’ Jerusalem and other areas; to grab another building from Palestinians; to show how “Jewish” they are by proposing anti-Arab legislation and by attacking NGOs that try to protect Israel the liberal democracy.
The frenzy of the ‘Judaization’ of Jerusalem has now crossed the tipping point where the international community is no longer willing to just stand by. A while ago 26 former EU leaders, many of whom during their careers had been staunch friends of Israel, asked for sanctions against Israel. This has now been followed by a call of EU consuls to recognize East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital; to place observers at each venue where Israel wants to destroy Palestinian buildings.
The ominous signs that Israel will soon be under great international pressure are mounting, and proposals for specific steps of boycott and sanctions are taking shape. One is to deny Israelis who live in the West Bank entry to the EU, and to forbid the sale of any Israeli products from the West Bank.
The present government will react to these steps with Netanyahu’s usual lament that Israel’s existence is delegitimized; that there is no connection between Israel’s actions and criticism from abroad. Avigdor Lieberman will say that Israel needs to show the international community that it has backbone, and that it doesn’t cave in under pressure.
Nothing; absolutely nothing seems to penetrate the minds of Israel’s right-wing politicians. Talking to them, I mostly hear genuine surprise at Israel’s isolation. They live in a deep bunker where the simplest of truths doesn’t penetrate their minds: for the world, a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital is a non-negotiable demand.
Mind-boggling as it may be, they really don’t understand that Israel’s actions in East Jerusalem and the continued building in the settlements has categorized Israel as the peace-refusenik. Even our most highly educated prime minister and defense minister, the seemingly worldly Netanyahu and Barak, have lost complete touch with the universe outside the Knesset. Netanyahu’s lamentations that it’s the Palestinians’ fault, and Barak’s assertion that during his tenure as prime minister Israel built more than now just show that their horizons are now exclusively defined by their desire to hold on to this coalition of shame for a few months longer.
I wish I knew of a way to stop the madness, but prospects for the immediate future are bleak. Human nature is deeply averse to accepting guilt and responsibility. Right-wing politicians in power refuse to look in the mirror and understand that their actions are bringing this disaster on Israel. They will need an internal scapegoat for whom they blame for Israel being under such heavy attack now.
We are therefore likely to witness an increase in attacks on NGOs, academics, men and women of letters, and citizens who have for years tried to avert disaster, and to divert Israel from the course of becoming an illiberal ethnocracy. The Knesset will step up its attempts to shut up criticism, and to claim that the critics of Israel are responsible for the sanctions, despite all the evidence to the contrary. They will do everything to avoid facing the simple truth: their actions, and not Israel’s liberal critics, are putting Israel into its unprecedented international isolation.
While I cannot predict how and when exactly it will be, the day will come when Israel will awake from the nationalist and racist nightmare into which it has fallen. Until Israel’s electorate wakes up and understands that a sane government needs to be elected, it is up to Israel’s civil society to keep alive the vision of what Israel can become.
Legal scholars like Ruti Gavison, writers like David Grossman, philosophers like Avishai Margalit and political historians like Zeev Sternhell, along with institutions like the Israel Democracy Institute, its academia, its theaters, its musicians and its filmmakers are keeping the moral and political vision alive, on which the Israel of tomorrow can build its foundations. The day will come in which the moral clarity and political wisdom of those who kept their minds and hearts intact will determine Israel’s future.
A final word to the majority of Jews around the world, whose worldviews are overwhelmingly liberal, and to the many non-Jewish friends of Israel who are disappointed by its actions: This is a difficult time to be a friend of Israel, and we have never been as much in need of friends as now, to help us through this time until Israel regains a viable moral and political vision for the future.
We need to remember that countries make mistakes. The McCarthyist wave that swept the U.S. darkened the horizon for a few years, but in the end, the American love for freedom overcame this terrible episode. At heart, Israel is a society that believes in life, freedom and creativity. Seeing Israel’s potential beyond the mistakes of its politicians keeps alive the knowledge that Israel will become the flourishing, creative, just and liberal democracy we want it to be.
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As one who agrees with this article and find the situation of Israel painful I ask - where is the leader who can give voice to these feelings and lead others. We are looking for a leader!!! If not Israel will continue on its way to suicide.
The land was given to us by HaShem with the command to settle it. This we are doing. Those that hate G-d may not agree with this, are they going to argue with Him?
So here's to keeping Israel alive, in spite of its McCarthyite politicians' mistakes! l'chaim!
Supurb analysis, I find myself daily feeling more and more desperate about the situation we find ourselves in. I dream of the day we wake up from the present nightmre, hopefully before somebody else wakes us up forcably.
it is the eternal capitol of the jewish people...
It is no problem to have ears without heaeing and eyes without seeing, they only need guns to shoot
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."
We, your friends, shake our heads in disbelief as you steal and settle land that belongs to other human beings. You, the persecuted, now victimize others. Regardless of how you justify your actions, the world disagrees with you. Stop this insanity before you alienate those of us who still support you.
... for it is impossible for this conflict to last forever. The only questions are: How long? And: How many lives must end or be ruined in the meantime?
Good on you!
was like a needle piercing my heart. Strenger is absolutely correct our country is heading off a cliff and when the worst comes we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.
Now- when are you going to turn your pen towards abbas and his calls for ethnic cleansing, towards jew hating incitement, towards anti semitic curriculum in their schools, towards arab rejection of israel past and present? Carlos, the only thing stranger than your anti israel bias is your silence on the arabs and palestinians aims for even you....for all of israel....now that's strange!
When Jerusalem was occupied during the 6days war, BG said:" zo hi bkhia ledorot" (This is a lemantation for generations). How right and far sighted he was and how blind and stupid we are!!!
Our government, like Arab governments, diverts attention away from its own faiings by trumping up charges against scapegoats.
Mr. Stenger, you sir are no Chamberlain. Your sir are more akin to Quisling. Chamberlain threw other people to the wolves. You sir want to throw your own people to the wolves.
If Israel needs friends in the international arena - and I agree it does - I would suggest that the greatest thing those friends can do for Israel is to support sanctions against the Netanyahu coalition and pressurize the administration into collapse. Only then can the country hope for the "flourishing, creative, just and liberal democracy we want it to be."
The present Israeli government expects Israelis to be loyal to their country. What it sees as lack of loyalty it criticizes. The right wing government is developing Jerusalem and the West Bank as did previous leftist governments. What is new is the call for a freeze. This government demands reciprocity and not blind obedience to please the non-Jews.
You can say the same thing about the left. They blame the rest of the Israeli establishment while working extremely hard and hand in hand with others in the world to legitimize Israel. To what end ? Both sides are blind and deaf.
But Israel Right has its brains fully functioning. The left may have a beating heart but is long ago brain dead.
Honest debate can kill the Right. Try to argue with them on a rational basis about the value of settlements in the West Bank. Who can possibly justify it from a rational point of view? The Palestinians will eventually become citizens and Israel will become the lost dream. To argue, they will rely on: It is ours, we dreamt about it, the Messiah will come, etc. No rationality. No wonder that there are effectively no intellectuals in the Right. Thinking people automatically become leftists, just because they think! Instead of getting into losing debates, the Right threatens and intimidates. Why investigate funding of the Left? Is there any evidence brought to light that the source is some "enemy of the state"? None was brought to light! If the Knesset thinks that foreign donations should be reported to the penny, pass such legislation. (I think amounts over $20,000 must be reported now.) If declared enemies of Israel, or any well-defined enemy should not be allowed to contribute, pass such legislation. The only problem is that Rightist organizations will also be subject to the same regulations. Sharon's son went to jail for exceeding the allowed donations from abroad (for elections). Unlike the US Congress, Knesset committees do not have subpoena powers, so all this "investigation" is simply an exercise in intimidation. The info that is available is a matter of public record, an investigation is otherwise superfluous, so let us move to the next, legislative step. There we will finally see the fascists at work; The limit will not be on amount but will have to be on the type of opinion that people express.
"....to claim that the critics of Israel are responsible for the sanctions, despite all the evidence to the contrary." So, Mr Strenger, what is all this evidence you refer to that proves if no one criticized Israel there would be sanctions?
I support the 2 state solution but I do think the zionist left should differentiate itself from Israel hating post zionists who support the right of return.
...a pronounced liberal such as "strenger", utilizes the bible to make his op-ed readable. trying to inflame instead of defuse, typical parochial attempts such as these" will availith thee little"; except of course your targeted audience, the "small', the "ignorant", the "proud". Oh by the way, that cigar! lol field day for" freud";"count it all 'joy' ".
Inform people http://wp.me/pDB7k-KL The information is out there USE IT!!
dating
If you believe that a left-leaning government will end Israel's international isolation and attempts at delegitimization then, sadly, you are hallucinating
When Israel will disengage from PA, the Palestinians will attack. For some reason Carlo Strenger avoids this issue. A new war might change the Palestinian mindset and will pacify them.
A new war seems to be the only kind of solution you rightist Jews can think of.
You don't want peace. You just talk...
lies and irrationtal excuses as usual.
Stop spreading the lie that there’s a connection between building settlements in the WB and legislating racism within Israel and security. The leaders of the settlement movement don’t give a damn about Israel’s security. I know this because I know that even if they believed that a return to the ’67 lines would result in 0 terror attacks on Israel and an end to our struggle with the Arab/Muslim world, in their heart of hearts the Gush Emunim/Mercaz Harav leadership would still choose Eretz Yisrael Hashlema over peace and security. If security’s the main concern then let the professionals, who are generally in favor of land for peace deals decide. If security is the principal concern then let’s bring all of the settlers home to Israel and just leave the army in place to the extent necessary to protect Israel.
Same probably will happen in WB.
It may appear that at times the world "cares" about the Jews, but that only happens when the Jews are hurting themselves, such as not defending ourselves or giving away Jewish property.
Did you not read the article? This is not about anti-semitism, neither real nor imagined, this is about Israel making itself a pariah because it would rather hold onto stolen land than honestly try for peace. Binyamin, if you are Israeli and you support this, then you have no one but yourself to blame, and you'd better pray that the world isn't as heartless as you imagine it to be, because it might soon be a very bad time to be an Israeli.
there . Smiling embarassedly ,just like encountering "Dead Man Walking". Was it because of Israeli Settlement Policy and the Right Wing Goverment ,Strenger ?
Remember: this is the age of the Web, old tricks mostly do not work anymore.
"Hubris"