The other day I quoted two Israelis saying that Americans don’t understand the normalness of Israel. It is a heroic place to American Jews, most of whom have never been there and have a fantasy of a heroic valiant place, silicon valley and Tel Aviv beaches under threat of extinction. Then you go there and it’s just a place, with people toiling along but not seeming that existential–and also having a lot of political baggage. I bet the American South felt both normal and weird in the same way in the 60s. Probably South Africa too.
Lately I got an email from Chris Varley of Toronto, who has relatives in Israel and offered a similar take:
Israel still feels like such a young and innocent country. Perhaps this also
explains why I liked it so much. For nearly a month I lived inside a
bubble, traveling in perfect security and comfort through a beautiful and
varied landscape basked in sunshine, inhaling the purity and purpose of the
Zionist founders, who came to this land to build a country.
Theodor Herzl felt that Jews could only live as a “normal
nation” within their own state, for hundreds of years of European anti-semitism
had bent their collective identity out of shape. From this perspective, Israel must be
considered a complete success. Israeli Jews live without
self-consciousness, in whatever manner they wish. Some are devoutly
religious; others never set foot within a shul. In Tel Aviv, the
hairdressers, bus drivers, bouncers, and beggars are all Jews. Nobody
gives their Jewishness a second thought. They live without fear or
suspicion, and nobody plays the anti-semitic card. If you disagree with
their politics, that’s your loss, nothing more. I felt free and happy in
this environment, and looked forward to every day of our visit.
Nobody views Iran or Syria
as serious threats, and the Palestinians are truly a “defeated people”. Hamas’
small rockets are immaterial to all but a few communities near Gaza , and provide the Israelis with good
p.r. for garnering additional support from the diaspora and their American
allies. Palestinians living in the little puddles of land that the
Israelis have not yet taken on the West Bank are subject to endless harassment and casual cruelty. Israelis view them
with indifference or contempt. They haven’t the slightest interest in
Arab culture, and the tour guides’ list of “Mooslim” sins are taken straight
from the text of “The Protocols of the Elders of Allah”, which everyone knows
is a fabrication of the Mossad.
On our second return to Jerusalem from the West Bank, our tour guide asked us
if we know how “Mooslims” teach mathematics. We shook our heads. “Well I’ll tell you then”, he replied. “If you have
30 children, and you kill the 15 Christian children and the 10 Jewish children,
how many children are left?”I knew this was baloney, but said nothing. The next
day, we ate lunch in Jerusalem with 2
Palestinian doctors from Hebron. I asked one of them if this is how she had been taught mathematics.
She was neither shocked nor defensive. She simply
asked “Why would anyone believe this?”
A couple of comments: 1, My most powerful
impression of Israel 2 years back was also the utter separation of
cultures. The wall. No one had Arab handicrafts in their homes, etc.
They didn’t want to think about Arabs. It had an absurd character, esp
when you consider (my refrain) it’s 500 miles east of Istanbul; 2,
Varley’s comment re Sderot is utterly borne out by the Times story the other day on the shelling of Sderot, which stated that Sderot has become a symbol for the Israelis of Never Again feeling.
The real question is, Is Sderot a symbol for
the Israelis? Or a symbol for American Jews? How vulnerable-making is
the Sderot situation for Israelis? Varley suggests not much at all. So
isn’t this more about the modeling of American opinion thru propaganda?
More on the point: Yesterday’s Times carried a Reuters piece on a suicide bombing in Sri Lanka that killed 15, including a former top marathon runner and Sri Lanka’s highway minister. According to Sri Lanka official news, the runner was a gold medalist in South Asia. It was on page 11 or so. I bet some people half a world away are freaking out. No one here cares. Shouldn’t we channel a little more of that detachment re Israel?
