Imagine it is 1985, the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, and an American television network does an extended piece on South African farmers producing high-protein wheat to deal with malnutrition in the U.S., and you have something of the fantasia flavor of 9 minutes of programming on National Public Radio this morning about Israeli efforts to make an electric car infrastructure work. First, a profile of the Israeli company “Better Place” — no, you can’t make this stuff up– by correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, then an interview of Better Place’s ceo Shai Agassi, 4-1/2 minutes of anchor Steve Inskeep’s midwestern literalness in which Agassi explained how Americans could adopt his Israeli system for a mere $8 billion and have a working electric network.
You might think that in 9 minutes of talk about driving in Israel–where every family has two cars, per Agassi– there might be one question about whether the subjugated population of Palestinians is enjoying the Jetsonian future. No. The only political talk was Agassi’s statement that Israel especially needs to figure out an oilless future because its oil-rich neighbors are so unfriendly. And why are they unfriendly? Why were Namibia and Mozambique unfriendly?
We often talk about “the bubble” on this site: the mental separation that Israelis in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem have achieved from the occupied territories and the political crisis that the rightslessness of half the governed population represents to Israel’s future. Karl Vick did a cover story for Time about this, “Why Israelis Don’t Care about Peace” –because they are doing too well. Now Israelis and their propagandists are trying to drag that bubble over Americans, and wish their troubles away. A Better Place, indeed.
P.S. Has NPR ever addressed the boycott movement that is causing Israeli companies and the Israeli brand international grief? That is the real political context for this report..
