EDITOR: Normality reins
Attacks on Gaza by the IDF are no news, never have been. We are always either after one, in the middle of one, or just before one. So reporting the brutalities is lax and laid back, as this, after all, is the normality of Gaza, of almost two million people living in the largest concentration camp on earth, one they cannot escape or defend effectively. That this is allowed to continue for decades is a mark of our time, of the callousness and indifference which our societies have normalised in the case of Palestine and especially of Gaza. It is also a mark of the innate brutality of the Israeli social structure, where his is hardly noticed. The erstwhile Gideon Levy is a lone voice in the wilderness, again.
Way to go, IDF!: Haaretz
The cyclical ritual of bloodletting between Israel and Gaza always prompts two questions: ‘Who started it?’ and ‘Whose is bigger?’
By Gideon Levy
Here we go again – a targeted killing; retaliation; retaliation to the retaliation. Here we go again – The reflexive act; the harsh rhetoric; the blindness. The Israel Defense Forces carries out a targeted killing. The Palestinian organizations avenge it – and it’s the Palestinians instigating war and terrorism. MK Danny Danon (Likud) has, of course, already called for “all of those in possession of weapons in the Gaza Strip” to be targeted because of the “million people living under fire.”
Those million people, in case you failed to get it, are the residents of southern Israel. Only they live under fire. By yesterday afternoon, the bodies of 15 Palestinians were already laid out on the other side of the Gaza border. There were eight people injured on this side, and the Iron Dome antimissile system chalked up the successful interception of 25 rockets.
This cyclical ritual of bloodletting always prompts two questions: “Who started it?” and “Whose is bigger?” It’s as if both questions were straight from some preschool playground. The response to the first question is always mired in uncertainty, while the answer to the second is always razor-sharp.
Who started it? The IDF and the Shin Bet security service did. The impression is that they carry out the targeted killings whenever they can, and not whenever it is necessary.
When are they necessary? Do you remember the debate on targeted killings sometime in the distant past? Then, it seemed the targets had to be “ticking time bombs” en route to carry out their attacks. In any event, such a vague standard no longer applies. In 2006, in his last court ruling handed down before his retirement, then Supreme Court President Aharon Barak barred such killings when they were meant to be “a deterrent or punishment.”
The latest target killed was Zuhair al-Qaissi, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza. IDF sources said he was responsible for the terrorist attack on the Egyptian border last August – which would make his killing an act of “deterrence or punishment.” But to be on the safe side, it was also noted that he had “led and directed plans to carry out a terror attack within Israel, which was in its final stages of preparation.”
This convoluted announcement by the IDF spokesman was enough to get the Israeli public to accept this latest regular dose of targeted killing with automatic understanding and sympathy. And who knows what the late al-Qaissi had planned? Only the Shin Bet does, so we accept his death sentence without unnecessary questions.
Did he really lead and direct plans? And what are “the final stages of preparation”? The military reporters said so, and the military reporters know. Even the question of the effectiveness, rather than the legality of the killings, is no longer a subject for debate. What benefit will it bring Israel, other than more people injured, and additional days of fear in the south? Did this targeted killing really head off a terrorist attack? We won’t know. It’s enough for the news presenters to know. (And they don’t. They just obediently spout what they get from the defense establishment. )
The second question – “Whose is bigger?” – is even more ridiculous and superfluous, of course. It’s the best equipped army in the world against a ragtag army of rocket launchers. Nonetheless, this has to be proven to everyone, both to them and us, over and over.
You have the score right here in front of you. As of yesterday afternoon, it was 15-0 in Israel’s favor. If we measure it by the results of the IDF’s Cast Lead operation in Gaza at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 – when it was one Israeli killed per 100 Palestinians – then from a statistical standpoint there’s been backsliding.
And imagine if, God forbid, there were 15 Israelis killed over the weekend? Cast Lead 2 and regional war, with a politically different Egypt as a backdrop. But the killing of 15 Palestinians is allowed, eliciting just a yawn. In another day or two, we should hope that calm will again prevail. And actually, the commentators have been saying that “neither side is interested in a confrontation.” A nameless mediator will handle the negotiations and the weapons will again be locked up.
Until the next round. At that point, the juvenile questions will be asked all over again. Again, Israel will not restrain itself from carrying out additional targeted killings. Again, the Palestinians will not restrain themselves from avenging the killings, both sides locked in their stupidity. Because that’s the routine in this insane asylum.
For those on the inside, everything appears normal and routine – as is always the case among such psychotic patients. So Iran is compared to Auschwitz and, in a blind reflex, a target killing is carried out in Gaza in the middle of a period of calm that had benefited everyone.
The rising star candidate as head of the opposition, Shaul Mofaz (Kadima), who is the winning alternative to the current government, has already welcomed the targeted killing, as did Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already contacted the mayors in the south in a show of support. This, too, is part of the standard ritual. Residents of the south sit in shelters while the rest of the country cluck their tongues and tell themselves “That’s how it is”; “Nothing else can be done”; and “Way to go, IDF!” And then they take an afternoon snooze in the wonderful springtime weather.
EDITOR: The delusional ego
While they destroy Gaza and murder people undeterred, and are about to attack Iran and cause untold damage, Israelis are playing at being the victim… The Nazis were also very fond of playing this evil game, and even presented themselves for years as the victim of Judaism. I have no doubt that the people speaking even believe in their own victimhood. At least the article gives a rounded depiction of Israeli identity, with many of the sub-groups represented here, but not all, of course.
Israelis: Portrait of a people in tense times: Observer
Talk of an existential threat to Israel from the Iranian nuclear programme echoed around Washington last week. Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, described the world’s failure to prevent the Holocaust and Barack Obama spoke of the country’s sovereign right to defend its people. But what is the nature of the state that has become central to global diplomacy? Harriet Sherwood listens to Israelis across this diverse nation
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Harriet Sherwood
The Observer, Sunday 11 March 2012
THE KIBBUTZNIK
NAME: Sigal Shoshany
AGE: 45
OCCUPATION: college administrator
LIVES: Degania Alef kibbutz, Galilee
FAMILY: married, four children
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: secular
Sigal Shoshany was born on Israel’s oldest kibbutz, Degania – now 101 years old – and has lived all her life among its banana and avocado trees on the southern shores of the Sea of Galilee.
Degania has changed since she was a child and there is now more individual freedom. “The kibbutz doesn’t tell you how to live your life any more,” she says. It’s a good thing, she adds; the world has changed and Degania has changed with it. “You can’t stay still.”
She and her non-kibbutznik husband, Shay, decided to stay at Degania to raise their family amid the security of kibbutz life. “The community holds you together,” says Sigal.
The kibbutz movement “symbolises what is best about Israel,” says Shay. The family watched last year’s nationwide demonstrations demanding social justice, knowing that “it already exists here”. Both say that national security is the most important issue facing Israel. At the start of the Arab spring, they welcomed the calls for freedom and democracy but now fear the rise of the “fundamental Islamism” in the region – which they describe as a “crazy neighbourhood”.
The Syrian border is not far from Degania, and they are worried about the outcome of the uprising there. But Iran is the biggest threat, says Shay. “[Ahmadinejad] is not a crazy guy – he is very clear about his intention, and very soon he will get the tools to make practical his ideology. The issue of survival should belong to the era of the Holocaust, but now Israel is again talking about it,” he says, adding that the issue is “not only for Israel but for the entire democratic world”.
The couple have four boys, aged from 23 years to 21 months. “Four sons – four soldiers,” Sigal says ruefully. The eldest, Shahaf, has completed his three-year military service; Snir, 20, will start his this month. “It’s not easy for me to send my boys to the army, but it’s something we must do to defend our country,” says Sigal. “It’s not something you want as a mother, that your son will fight, but it has to be done.”
“This is the meaning and the reality of being Israeli,” adds Shay. He points out that 90% of young people living on kibbutzim serve in the army, compared to only 50% living in Tel Aviv. “It’s part of our sense of public duty.”
Snir, who has been accepted into an elite combat unit, says: “I grew up in an environment that gives me the feeling it is an honour to go to the army. My parents and grandparents served their country. I’m very proud to be Israeli, it’s a special country. People outside only see the bad things, but there are many more good things.”
Both he and his older brother insist the Israeli army has strong humanitarian principles, but its first duty is to protect Israeli citizens.
The Shoshanys have encouraged their children and their community to have contact with Palestinians to overcome mutual suspicions and stereotypes. “It’s possible to live here without being connected to the issue of the Palestinians – apart from through the army,” says Sigal. They are in favour of a two-state solution based on 1967 borders.
The couple are proud of what Israel has achieved in almost 64 years. “It’s a kind of miracle – what we have done in the fields of medicine, agriculture and the economy,” says Shay. “If we could be at peace, it could be a paradise.”
THE RABBI
NAME Moshe Weiss
AGE: 52
OCCUPATION: businessman
LIVES: Jerusalem
FAMILY: married, 10 children, seven grandchildren
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: ultra-orthodox Jewish
Rabbi Moshe Weiss, born in New York to Holocaust survivors from Hungary, came to Israel at the age of 18. “I grew up in a home which was haredi [ultra-orthodox] but my father was a passionate Zionist. For us, the state of Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people after thousands of years of exile and a place where Jewish people with all their dimensions finally have a home.”
Weiss originally came to study for a year in a yeshiva, a religious school. “I was going to become a corporate lawyer or an architect, but I fell in love with the country. I wanted to be part of Jewish history.” Now he runs a hi-tech company, Netspark, which filters internet content.
The most important issue facing Israel is, he says, the security threat, especially from Iran which is “threatening to wipe us off the map”. He hopes for peace with the Palestinians, but fears “the extremists among them are fighting against compromise. Nevertheless, our leaders are patiently trying to work things out.”
But he speaks mainly of divisions within Israeli society. In the past, he says, Israelis were too busy building and protecting their new state to focus on internal differences. In recent months the Israeli haredi community has come under particular scrutiny following calls by some of its more extreme sects for greater gender segregation and female modesty. The ultra-orthodox have also attracted criticism because many men choose religious study over paid work, relying on state benefits and evading compulsory military service.
Weiss is scathing of the extremists within the community. “The vast majority of haredi people are tolerant, respectful, and totally abhor the behaviour of – I wouldn’t call them zealots or fanatics – they are criminals.” But he says the attention given to the minority has been damaging to the community.
“It comes at a time when we see great effort by the new generation of ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel to integrate, to contribute, so that the secular part of society considers the haredi community as an equal partner.” The current hostility to the ultra-orthodox was counter-productive to that effort, he says, encouraging the community to withdraw.
Ultra-orthodox women are not second-class citizens, he insists. Religious women have a different lifestyle to secular women, but it is chosen by them, not forced on them.
Israel is becoming a more religious society, he says, citing a survey showing 80% of respondents believe in God. But he hopes the country will find a “common denominator” both within its own society and with the Palestinians. “But each part of this multi-dimensional nation and people needs to look inward to see how they relate to other parts of society with more appreciation and respect.”
THE UKRAINIAN
NAME: Alex Yamnitzky
AGE: 50
OCCUPATION: mechanical engineer
LIVES: Sderot
FAMILY: married, one child
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: secular Jewish
Alex Yamnitzky came to Israel at the age of 28 from Ukraine. “It wasn’t anything ideological or religious. There was antisemitism, but it wasn’t a major factor. Once the borders began to open, people around us started moving in search of a better life.”
The Jewish National Fund paid for tickets and helped support the new beginnings of Alex and a group of Jewish friends who made aliyah [immigrated to Israel] together. Alex worked in construction while learning Hebrew for a year, before finding a job as a mechanical engineer.
He has lived in Sderot for more than 20 years, a town in southern Israel, close to the border with Gaza, which has a big community of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. “We tend to stick together,” he says.
“Now I think of myself as Israeli, not Ukrainian. Being Israeli is not a religious identity for me but a national one – the fact that I’m in my own country. Religion is not part of our daily lives.”
Alex says his economic hopes have been fulfilled, but that the cost of living in Israel is high. “The economy worries me more than the political situation,” he says, meaning the conflict with the Palestinians. “The economy has to do with our everyday lives, whereas the political situation is much further away.”
This is despite living within the target range of rockets and missiles fired into Israel from Gaza. “Of course the qassams [rockets] are part of our lives, but what can you do about it?” He says things have eased in Sderot as the reach of the missiles has extended – “the rockets fly further now”.
He dismisses the Palestinians’ claim to the land, saying “they didn’t really take care of it, and it only started to develop when the Jews came”.
His 18-year-old daughter, Vika, is about to start her two-year military service, which Alex feels is an important process in helping to cement national identity. “The army is a page in every Israeli’s life and it makes you stronger,” he says.
The family is disillusioned with elected politicians. Alex’s wife, Inessa, says they expected more of Avigdor Lieberman, the hardline rightwing leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, a party which has a strong Russian base, “but he does nothing now”.
“The time when Russians would vote for someone because he is Russian is over,” says Alex. “We’ve been here too long.”
THE SETTLER
NAME: Natalie Hershkowitz
AGE: 49
OCCUPATION: settlement secretary
LIVES: Barkan
FAMILY: married, six children
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: ‘connected to God’ but not traditionally observant
Natalie Hershkowitz moved from Tel Aviv to Barkan 15 years ago because she needed a big house to raise her family in and wanted to live in a “good community”. “The fact that it was across the Green Line [in the West Bank] was a benefit. We come from the right side of the political map, so it was our duty to come here. It was the right thing to do according to our beliefs,” she says.
But the distance – 25 minutes in the car – from Tel Aviv, and the “quality of the air”, helped the decision to move from the city in which she was born and raised. The price of land and property in West Bank settlements was cheap then, she says; now Barkan – which was founded in 1981 – “is very exclusive”.
She describes it as a “village” not a settlement – “although we are not ashamed of the word settlement. But the connotation today of ‘settler’ is someone who came to conquer a foreign land. This is our land. We are not colonialists. God gave us this land.”
Natalie and her husband, Itzhak, say they have a strong connection to and belief in God, but are not conventionally observant Jews. “We go to the synagogue regularly but not every week. We celebrate holy days. We don’t keep a kosher kitchen, but we don’t eat ham or oysters.”
Barkan is a mainly secular settlement. “It’s very important to say that,” says Natalie, “because people think once you cross the Green Line everyone is a religious fanatic. People don’t know that a third of the [Jewish] population across the Green Line is secular.”
The essence of being Israeli, she says, is “to be here on the biblical land of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]”. The Palestinians who were born on the land should have the right to live there, “but to live in peace with us. They can’t make us disappear, we can’t make them disappear.” She points out that 3,000 Palestinians – or “local Arabs” – work in the settlement’s industrial zone. “We are working together, living together. It’s impossible to divide us.”
She believes a separate Palestinian state is not possible “even if the whole world recognises one. You can never draw a border because it’s all too mixed up now. This land has to be one Israeli Jewish state, but with an Arab minority with human rights. This is meant to be ours, we were here before. I don’t want to drive them away, but I want to live with them in peace.”
She includes Iran among the most important issues facing Israel, but says “it’s not only our problem, it’s a problem of the whole western world”.
The settlement movement is getting stronger, she says. “This situation will be for ever. No politician will ever be able to make a peace [with the Palestinians] without leaving us here.”
THE PALESTINIAN
NAME: Youssef Asfour
AGE: 40
OCCUPATION: history teacher
LIVES: Jaffa
FAMILY: married, one child, triplets due in May
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: Muslim
Youssef Asfour’s relatives were displaced in the 1948 war, with some scattering to Lebanon and Gaza and his mother and father ending up in Ajami, an area of Jaffa he describes as a ghetto.
“On both sides, the families lost property and land,” he says. “My grandfather used to be a journalist. He finished his life cleaning at a butcher’s shop in Carmel [the main Tel Aviv market].”
Despite his Israeli citizenship, Youssef does not consider himself as Israeli, but a Palestinian who lives in Israel. He shows his Israeli identity card. Until 2005, it used to categorise him as an “Arab”, but after many court battles ID cards now show a row of asterisks for all Israeli citizens. However, Jews are identified as such by their date of birth, shown according to the Hebrew as well as Gregorian calendar.
“I don’t feel part of Israel,” he says. “I’m a native here. Why is it OK for someone who comes from America or Morocco or Russia to be here, but not me?”
He points to laws passed in the Israeli parliament, including one permitting communities to bar individuals who don’t “fit the social fabric” from buying property and another outlawing the commemoration by public bodies of the Nakba, or catastrophe, suffered by the Palestinians in 1948. “Look at these laws, and you will find the discrimination we suffer,” says Youssef.
As a history teacher, he says he is expected to teach a version of events which is disputed by Palestinians. “I think it’s a duty to teach both [Israeli and Palestinian] narratives. We need to teach that the Palestinians were here [before 1948], and that the Jews were victims of persecution in Europe. It is a mistake for both sides to ignore the other.”
Reaching a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most important issue, he says. “Then all the money that now goes on weapons could be spent on education. If you want real democracy, start by building schools and teaching people how to read and write. This is the real revolution. Violence is never a solution; the solution is in education.”
THE HEDONIST
NAME: Omer Gershon
AGE: 37
OCCUPATION: marketing consultant and events producer
LIVES: Tel Aviv
FAMILY: single
RELIGIOUS IDENTITY: none
Omer Gershon is “a true Tel Avivian”, born and raised in the city, unlike many of its transient residents, and is a standard-bearer for its hedonistic, nihilistic, gay-friendly reputation.
He is, he admits, “the epitome of the bubble boy”, referring to the city’s insulation from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and dedication to partying. As a professional party-thrower, networker and partner in several clubs and bars, he says he is known as the king of nightlife.
Tel Aviv, he says, is “a country within a country – it’s so separate from the rest of Israel. Everyone expects Israel to be a country in conflict, and then they come to Tel Aviv and everyone is partying or sitting in cafes and bars. We have a heightened sense of escapism because we’re aware of life’s fragility. The sense of carpe diem is very strong here.”
Gershon says his Jewishness is part of who he is and part of his family history, but not a big deal. He laughs when asked if he considers himself a Zionist. But he concedes he is a patriot, which he defines as loving his country while hating those who run it.
“I’m proud of my heritage and proud to be Israeli, despite its infamous reputation. But I do realise every now and again that Israel is not so good if you’re not Jewish – and if you’re Arab, it’s one of the worst places to be.”
Tel Aviv “divides between activists who give a shit about everything and the rest of us who don’t give a shit about anything”.
As a gay man, he says, Tel Aviv is a “paradise”. “There is no feeling of ghettoisation. The gay scene is very integrated with the straight scene. There are very few gay bars because there are gay people in every bar.”
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has little relevance to his life, but he insists “the majority of people – both us and them – want peace. There’s no reason for hate. But somehow the government fucks it up. That’s how it feels.”
ISRAEL: FACTS AND FIGURES
Population
7.8 million – 75% Jewish; 20% Arab.
About 70% of the Jewish population is Israeli-born; the rest are immigrants, mainly from Europe and the Americas, but also from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Religion
Jewish (75.5%), Muslim (16.8%), Christian (2.1%), Druze (1.7%).
Language
Hebrew, Arabic. English is common; Russian is spoken in areas dominated by immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
Main centres
Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa. About 90% of people live in urban areas. About 325,000 Jews live in West Bank settlements and 200,000 in east Jerusalem.
Compulsory military service
Three years for men; two years for women, beginning at 18. Arabs and most ultra-orthodox Jews are exempt.
Economy
Main industries are electronics, biotech, agriculture, tourism and diamonds.
National anthem
HaTikvah (The Hope) includes the words, “The 2,000-year-old hope will not be lost: To be a free people in our land, The land of Zion and Jerusalem.”