How much idiocy can Israeli society take? di Carolina Landsmann
haaretz.com
In
the sea of stupidity into which Israeli society is slowly sinking, the
response of Ahed Tamimi’s father to the secret discussion in the Knesset
initiated two years ago by Deputy Minister Michael Oren was like a life
preserver of wisdom. “How did such a fool get to be your ambassador to
the United States?” Bassem Tamimi asked with mock concern. “How does the
State of Israel allow such a thing?” Good question.
Out
of respect for Oren, it’s best not to go into details. The entire
discussion is ridiculous and it would be embarrassing to disclose the
details. In his defense, it must be said that he’s not alone. In
retrospect, it seems obvious that in a place where the Palestinian
people is denied, the Palestinian family is also denied. Life in Israel
has become a kind of intellectual torture: Everyone talks nonsense and
it’s impossible to disconnect.
“Israel
should not give a platform to a drunk who compares a girl who was
murdered in the Holocaust and a heroine who battled the Nazi regime to
Ahed Tamimi, a punk who assaulted a solider,” said Defense Minister
Avigdor Lieberman. Fuming over the comparison that author and songwriter
Yehonatan Geffen made between Ahed Tamimi and Anne Frank and Hannah
Szenes, Lieberman directed Army Radio to ban him and called on all media
outlets to do the same.
As
if in a ritual, the attorney general soon issued a statement to clean
up the mess left by Lieberman’s slip of the tongue: the defense
minister, he said, does not have the authority to interfere with the
station’s content. How did such a rude, violent, ultranationalist get to
be defense minister? How does Israel allow such a thing?
And
in all that silly ruckus, no one stopped to ask whether it’s okay to
compare Anne Frank with Hannah Szenes. What do they have in common? And
we really should discuss the meager reservoir of metaphors being
fostered by Israel’s intellectual elite. Tamimi struck home with this
one: “If that’s your elite, I’m not sure how you manage to beat us.”
Because
as admirable, hope-inspiring and just is the political awakening among
the elite of opponents to the deportation of asylum seekers, it comes
with a slight sense of discomfort at the fact that these protesters have
been captivated by the comparison to the Holocaust. After all, if the
asylum seekers are Jews persecuted by the Nazis, what do the signatories
of the petitions think that makes them: Schindler? Janusz Korczak?
In
response to the political persecution, Israeli entertainer Gidi Gov
became irritated that a new immigrant with a Russian accent dared turn
Geffen, the sabra scion of that dynasty of local nobility, the Dayans,
into an enemy of Israel.
If
the Law of Return frustrates Gov, we can only imagine the rage it
evokes in native-born Arabs. Gov doesn’t need it explained to him that
he was a bit racist, he himself prefaced his statement with a
reservation and also apologized for it. In another country — Canada?
Sweden? His words might have drawn a moralistic reprimand. But in Israel
in 2018? In a week where the culture minister posts a clip on Facebook
where she is embraced by fans of the Beitar soccer team singing “Let
their village burn,” referring to the fans of the team from the Arab
town of Sakhnin?
Does
MK Yulia Malinovsky of Yisrael Beiteinu — an extreme right-wing party
that calls for the boycott and transfer of 20 percent of Israel’s
citizens — have any right to protest racism? And can the justice
minister, who is promoting the apartheid revolution, defend the “Russian
aliyah”? Who are they kidding? Who believes their lies? Enough already.
You’re either thugs or crybabies.
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