Judea and Samaria - and the kitsch

The new expensive campaign by the Yesha Council of settlements - "Judea and Samaria, the story of every Jew" - is a source of satisfaction to settlers. Only a secular mind, they say there, could turn the land over the Green Line into Disneyland: no Palestinians, no fences, no soldiers, no violence, no bloodshed and no fear. Not to mention no heat and no dust (but also no young men with long beards and sidelocks, hitting police and shouting, "Jews do not expel Jews").

Instead, the Web site of the new secular public relations firm working with the Yesha Council features blue-eyed, light-haired children in supposed biblical dress. In fact, they look exactly like children featured on evangelical American TV. The scepter and the gold crown are identical to the props used in nativity pageants. The most striking similarity is the light blue sheep peeping flat-eared out of the corner of the photograph (the "poor man's sheep"?)

But the height of the kitsch is the story itself, reconstructed on the Web site and told in children's voices (by the by, the written text is full of spelling mistakes). It shrinks the magnificent culture of the Jewish people, the Bible, into a glitzy, passionless legend, lacking ideology and psychological significance, devoid of historical and geographic context, and bereft of the wondrous language of the ancient text.

The limping limerick about Joseph and his coat of many colors makes one suddenly miss the ancient and primitive Bible teaching text "Tzena Ur'ena," which at least exuded a down-to-earth spirit.

At the beginning of the holidays, the Yesha Council already reported a significant rise in the number of people joining its guided tours. No surprise there, considering the entertainment program was publicized on the backs of thousands of buses at a cost of millions of shekels.

We know, the campaign is actually saying: You secular people do not know the ancient sources, because you are ignorant and shallow people who are only interested in reality television. Therefore, to this day, you do not understand why we are holding on so tightly to the Cave of Machpela and the Tomb of Rachel, and are willing to give our lives (and yours, too), for them, until all the Palestinians disappear. So what can we do to get you to support us when we need you to? And to not again exhibit the same sort of indifference as during disengagement? We will pay secular people like yourselves to speak to you in the only infantile language that you understand.

The use of Christian preachers' gimmicks to transform the political experience, and the mashing of cultural heritage into processed baby food, are insulting. But will the visitors to that imaginary biblical theme park really believe that no connection exists between it and the increasingly violent and ugly destruction of Israel, which is happening in the same place where the blond boy and the light-blue sheep had their picture taken?