Rogel Alpher : Israel is my home, but I can no longer live here
I need to leave the country. My Israeliness and
my Jewishness are not essential to my identity. I hold a foreign
passport, not just technically, but psychologically. Israel is my home
but it is not correct to say I have no other.
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Like every
cosmopolitan person, strictly secular and with a universalist worldview,
well-steeped in the global culture and speaking fluent English, I can
have many other homes. There are quite a few countries where I could
settle, make a living and feel comfortable. Like anyone who believes
strongly that he lives only once and has a right to fulfill his personal
desires and flourish with a minimum of sacrifice required for the
country where he pays taxes and receives educational, welfare and other
services, it is clear to me that Israel offers me a bum deal and there
are far better deals out there in the world. Like any parents who
believe that their children have no patriotic duty toward the Israel of
today, and they do not need to risk their lives or die serving it, I
have no doubt that I am doing them wrong by raising them here.
I’m
not talking about morality. I don’t want this article to be yet another
empty debate about the occupation. I am talking in a practical and
sober language. I am trying to be realistic, like Pensioner Affairs
Minister Uri Orbach. He claims that we must concede that in our lifetime
and that of our children, every few years we will have to wage a war in
which civilians will be killed too. He is right. These are the facts of
our lives. Missiles will continue to fall on us, because of settlers
like him and because of extremist Arab groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and
the Islamic State.
My
fate and the fate of my children will be determined here by people who
have a God whom they talk to and in whose name they act. I think they
are crazy. What are the alternatives? The racist forces of Foreign
Minister Avigdor Lieberman? The empty words of Yair Lapid? The useless
pessimism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? For them, and for their
voters, to be a Jew living in Israel is the most important thing, and
it’s worth dying for. And they shape our lives according to that
principle. They live at Yad Vashem.
I
belong to a dying breed in Israel. I can’t influence the situation. I
have no interest in devoting myself to the struggle against the
occupation. I believe that it is useless. There will be no compromise.
No Palestinian state will be established, and a binational state will be
hell.
I
watch Channel 2, listen to Army Radio, read the website Walla and the
newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth – and feel like I don’t belong; that there’s
nothing for me here, not even in the Tel Aviv bubble. I don’t want to
live in a bubble, certainly not one that’s protected by an Iron Dome.
If
you identify with me you will certainly admit that you will encourage
your children to seek their future elsewhere in the world, for the sake
of their personal security, psychological and economic wellbeing. Israel
is not worth the price it is exacting from us. There is a
nationalist-religious-ultra-Orthodox majority, and our lifestyle will
not survive in our homeland. We have a much better chance of maintaining
it elsewhere. That’s the truth.
I
cannot justify to my children continuing to live here. Israel is a
dangerous place, which takes much more than it gives, for reasons that I
do not accept. From my perspective, what goes for Tel Aviv goes for the
communities on the Gaza border: You cannot live a good life here. You
can die here, you can take shelter or you can simply leave.
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