Last update - 00:00 19/02/2007
Attention, please!
By Lily Galili
Excuse us for bothering you, but this will really just take a moment. All we want is to remind you that we exist. We know that you there - in the government, in the army, in the police - are terribly busy being questioned, investigated, suspected and sometimes even accused, but meanwhile bad things are happening to us, too. Maybe not as bad as what's happening to you, but still. For instance, they're shooting at us, mistreating our elderly parents, killing our children, stealing from us, coveting our property.
Sometimes we don't have money for food, sometimes we don't have a home, because you haven't given us the evacuation-compensation payments. Sometimes our business is ruined, because you didn't compensate us for war damages. It's not that you don't want to do this or that you don't care - you're simply busy or severely injured. Our hearts bleed when you, who in normal times are tough men, complain in public about the snakes waiting to ambush you in your workplaces and about some No. 2 who came by to stab you in the back. Clearly, you also want love. We, on the other hand, would make do with a little attention.
You'll say - correctly - that we're just whining, that overall we're also having fun. You'll wave in our face a newspaper clipping showing us en route to Ofer Glazer's going-away party before he was jailed on charges of sexual harassment. You'll be completely right in telling us that with these kinds of norms, we have nothing to complain about. But all the same, there is a difference. You work for us; we don't work for you. We, whether by choice or due to lack of choice, are fulfilling our role in the contract that we signed. We go to work - sometimes holding down two jobs - pay taxes, do our reserve duty and occasionally also volunteer for the Civil Guard to ease your burden.
Lately, in a sincere effort to make things still easier for you, we built soup kitchens for ourselves, along with alternative companies to distribute cheaper medications. We even hired private investigators to resolve murders with which you are having trouble coping, due to your heavy load. You see that we are really trying. You, on the other hand, are not really making an effort for us. Excuse us for saying this, but unlike our workdays, your workdays seem to be dedicated to non-work-related matters. When we work, we are not even allowed to use the office phone for private conversations or to sit while working the cash register, so as not to insult the customers. So we only wanted to remind you that we are your customers; please sort out your private affairs during your free time. Just start working for us.
By the way, we wanted to draw your attention to an interview with Menachem Begin, which was broadcast to mark the 15th anniversary of his death. The details with which he described the diplomatic and political processes of that time, which may not even have been to your liking, are not what's important. We wanted you to pay attention to the way in which he spoke. First of all, he spoke about his party by using the word "we." When, in recent times, have you used the word "we" when speaking about your workplace - aside from the moments when you wanted to turn personal responsibility into collective responsibility?
But the strangest thing was hearing Begin say in the interview - twice - "when we served in the government." What a surprising turn of phrase! Not "sat" in the government, but "served" in it! That is the entire difference. Serve us. We'll do the rest on our own.