I guess my evolving perspective on the health of a democratic Israel is
less optimistic than a year ago.
It seems two of the four main characters, the Israeli citizens and the
Palestinian refugees, have become victims of their own success. They each have powerful allies now, their
cause having been brought to world attention in more grisly and dramatic
fashion, so that the silent partners and the resuppliers for each have invested
more of their own orthodoxies into this tragedy, making it almost impossible
for the victims on the ground to voice their desperation or changed perspective.
Yesterday,
there was a story off Ha’aretz online about a ultra-rightist settler killed
last week whose body was not buried immediately according to Judaic law. His widow wanted him buried near where
he had been killed, perhaps augmenting the symbolism of her husband’s
sacrifice, while the rabbi in charge declared he should be buried
elsewhere. On the way to the
rabbi-endorsed cemetery, the body was hijacked and driven away, even trying to
elude a police chase before it was apprehended and buried where dictated.
It sometimes
seems that the theocracy and the hysteria of some on the verge of a nervous
breakdown are fighting for crowd control.
I don’t intend
my remarks to be overly critical of Israel alone. But to be honest, I am more familiar by upbringing and
learning with Israel’s history and culture, and symbolically what the state of
Israel means in Judeo-Christianity.
The jackals tearing at the corpse of what has been identified as the late
Palestinian gov’t prevent a decent burial and mourning process from happening
there, so that the survivors of that massacre cannot bring closure and renew
their search for Mr. Right.
Karen Watters Cole
TEL
AVIV — Maybe the most telling fact in this coming Israeli election is that at
this moment of intense crisis, a tiny Israeli party, Green Leaf, which
advocates the legalization of marijuana, could win one or two seats in the new
parliament. Green Leaf's motto might as well be: since every other solution has
been tried and failed, why not just get high?
I've
covered a lot of Israeli elections, but I have never seen one like this. I've never seen the Israeli public less
interested in the two major parties — indeed, in the whole event. The reasons are not hard to
discern. The last two years of suicide bombings and collapsed peace have
knocked the stuffing out of this place.
It
is not that Israelis are about to surrender. The Palestinian
fantasy
that the Jews will just pick up and leave if you turn the heat up on them high
enough was so wrong, so foolish. (You should see the number of concerts and
theater and dance performances in Tel Aviv on any given evening.) Nevertheless, there is a deep and growing
sense among Israelis of "No Exit," a sense that every idea has been tried — peace
overtures, crackdowns, settlements, targeted killings, the left-wing solution
and the right-wing solution, and nothing works. As an Israeli friend told me over dinner: "You look at
your kids and your grandkids now and you ask yourself: What if it never ends?"
“…All of this, politicians and political
scientists say, mirrors
deep changes under way in Israel. "More
than ever before, the advertisements represent the structure of Israeli
society," said Yoram Peri, chairman of the Chaim Herzog Center for Media,
Politics and Society at Tel Aviv University. "We have a very divided society with a very
strong emphasis on your identification with your tribe."
… The Russian parties generally include
Hebrew subtitles, though not always.
Two of the Orthodox parties also run Hebrew subtitles when their leaders
speak, although both speak Hebrew.
The reason is that both are aged rabbis, and they mumble. One of them, Ovadia Yosef of the party
Shas, is shown telling congregants that when they are judged after death, an
angel will reassure them: "Don't worry, relax — you went to the ballot
box, and you put in a ballot for Shas. You go to heaven — go to the fifth
floor."
On
Thursday evening that commercial was immediately followed by one for a
left-wing party, Meretz. That ad also showed a clip of Rabbi Yosef cursing the
Meretz leader, Yossi Sarid. "May his name be erased," the rabbi
declares. In fierce competition
with other secular parties, Meretz is bidding for anti- religious voters.
That
Meretz message demonstrates the limited ambitions of these parties. "The real campaign is within a camp,
not between camps,"
said Sam Lehman-Wilzig, the vice chairman of the department of political
studies at Bar-Ilan University. Each party is not trying to reach swing
voters in the center
as much as it is "going
after the near circle of potential supporters who are seriously considering one or two other
parties in the immediate vicinity."
(end
of excerpts)
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2002
