I really tried to avoid this topic. Kinda of a party bummer, when everyone seems to be having a good time and then someone says: “Hey, how about them Yankees!” in Boston. Ouch… But recent news poked me, and I just have to scratch this itch, even if it’s gonna bleed a little. So walk with me.
Israel. Haaretz Yisrael.
Those of you who follow me for some time know I was a conservative kid (didn’t last long). I was one breath away from traveling to Israel to work as a Kibbutz volunteer. My parents went over the brochures I brought home from school, looked at each other and then at me. They did not have to say a word, as I could read the answer as if they had it written on their foreheads. “Nope.”
“Just a thought.” I said. And that was it.
Around that time, the Jewish plight was appealing to me in a strong way. Golda Meir, Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, were heroes to me. I used to carry the English paperback Dell Publishing Co. edition of “The Revolt”, 1978, by Menachem Begin. I read the shit out of that book, cover to cover, many times. Israel was an ideal to me, a singular nation, born against all odds. Much like ours, I thought back then.
I was in awe of the IDF. Especially their special forces and Air Force. The Entebe raid, the superb execution of the air raid on Osirak (Operation Opera), the Ofira fight during the Yom Kippur war, I mean, 2 Phantoms against 28 Migs? And they won! Pure magic!
I painted a camo background with an Israeli flag over it and the initials “IDF” under the flag, on an old patch. I sewed it myself on a jacket and wore it to school, causing some friends of mine to give me the hairy fishy eye. I didn’t give a shit. I was in love with the ideal of an entrenched nation fighting successfully for its existence, after the Holocaust I knew so well. Then, eventually, History hit me like a ton of bricks. And I found out why you should never meet your heroes.
Turns out things were not so black and white.
Turns out those Arabs I read about in the words of Menachem Begin were not so linear. And they were called “Palestinians”. And so was the land Israel laid itself upon. Palestine.
I was well aware of that geographical fact before that, but I had never thought about it from the political angle. And I couldn’t get enough of it.
I remember my dad smiling when I borrowed his copy of Jean-Paul Sartre’s prefaced “Dossier do Conflicto Israelo-Árabe” (Dossier of the Israeli-Arab Conflict), a 1968 Inova publishing edition (in Portuguese). His look was like “About time.” My parents never imposed any ideology on me, they would just have books around, occasionally pointing me towards one of them. God, I miss dad…
I soon realized just how fucked up the whole thing was, how no sides could claim the moral high ground, how useless it was to try and make a strong case for either side without falling through the cracks of History, and how a two states solution was the only way out of that mess.
So years after my dream of the Kibbutz, I started dreaming of the Palestinian cause, and of its people. A people who suffer under similar circumstances as the ones who oppress them suffered in Europe, once.
No. Israelis are not like the German Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. Those of you thinking that’s where this is going, please consider yourselves disabused of that notion, thank you.
I also became aware that the institution of the Jewish State could have been executed a lot better, including the Palestinians and, especially, reaffirming the unquestionable free city status of Jerusalem, laid on its stones since before the Crusades. But no. It was not meant to be.
Her Majesty’s council had other plans for Palestine, a British protectorate long before World War II, ranging from “We’re keeping it”, to “We’ll control the Jews”, with other stops in between, including the infamous “No way we are allowing the Jews here”. Western interests in the region are to blame for so many of the problems that persist to this day in that part of the world. If you are wondering about why the Middle East is so fucked up, look no further than the Suez Canal, in 1956.
But let’s stay on the main topic, even if Israel was involved in the Suez Canal shit show of ‘56, otherwise I will be writing a 50 post thread! The way to peace in the Middle East, particularly when it comes to Palestine and Israel, depends on the sustainable implementation of a two state solution, and turning Jerusalem into the free city it was always meant to be, a world treasure, open to all, belonging to none.
This, of course, depends on common sense from both parties involved. This is why, when Mike Pompeo pushed and managed to move our embassy in Israel from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, I was dumbfounded. This is the US recognizing, unequivocally, the right of Israel to have its capital in Jerusalem. A slap on the face of Arabs. Both Israelis and Palestinians have huge internal problems, regarding the balance of reason and irrationality, compromise and extremism. The farthest away from sense, the harder to reach a solution. And yesterday, we all saw the news.
[quote]
Netanyahu and his allies passed a law last week that removes the high court’s ability to annul government decisions considered “unreasonable.”
[unquote]
(Associated Press)
Israel, by virtue of its radical government, is poised to render its version of the SCOTUS inoperable, when it comes to the will of Bibi Netanyahu and his minions. Not great, Bob.
Extreme measures like aggressive borderline criminal interventions in the occupied territories, curtailing civil rights of both Palestinians and Israelis, mindless expansion of settlements on Palestinian land, you name it. But the doozy is the mandatory adherence to Jewish orthodoxy, as a means to claim Israeli citizenship only for the Orthodox Jews. The conversion of a nation founded on religious beliefs into a de facto religious state. I mean, what could possibly go wrong.
And this is where this crisis in Israel touches close to home, because we are facing a resurgence of the Christian Nationalists dream of America as a Christian Nation. There may be a way to reach peace in the Middle East, but steering hard right to a fanatical religious state of Israel is not it.
Ani bocheh bishvilech, Haaretz Yisrael.
I am crying for you, land of Israel.
[finis]
