One Tuesday After...

The Tuesday 9th was one week ago, and gone are also the excitement, emotions, anger, thoughts and worries.

People had elected what they considered the best for them. With or without other people's worries, they, those people with the right to express their vote, decided what is the best for them, their families and the future of their children. The elections were fair, people went to vote in a relatiely higher number - although it is a bit not so inspired to make elections' day a free day when the young people will most probably go to the seaside or to Eilat instead of going to vote. But the big majority knew exactly what they are voting for, what is the discussion about corruption, who is acccused for corruption and what does it mean voting the person accused of corruption for another mandate. The voters also had enough time - 13 years - to figure out if that person is worth being in the office again. Or what will it happen when more religious parties will be present in the government. Or how good will it be for the country to have a stronger voice of the Kahanists heard in the Parliament or in the public opinion. 

That's how things are and there is nothing to do against or for. How things will be, people who voted decided the last Tuesday. They are the one responsible for their future and it will be their future from now on. 

Democracies gave the people's right to decide about their future. Including about a future where democracy is rather a memory. 

About Tuesday

A couple of years ago, when Obama was president, the decision makers in Israel shared more than once the opinion that Washington shall understand that 70 years after its founding the Jewish state is entitled to take its own decisions and be responsible for them. An opinion perfectly available that would have make a break in a certain level of inter-dependence between the two countries, each with specific strategic, geopolitical and economic interests.

After 13 years in powe as prime minister - anyone remembers Thomas Moore's quote: 'Laws could be passed to keep the leader of a government from getting too much power'? - 'Mr. Security' Benjamin Netanyahu announces that he succeeded - in fact - to convince the American administration about: the need to recognize unilaterally the Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights, eventually over the West Bank soon, the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem etc. What would it have to say when a new administration will be installed - at least the mandates of the American presidents are wisely limited to eight years - and will decide to reverse those decisions? 

If on Tuesday, the first Benjamin - or Bibi - will win against the second one - Benny Gantz - as the polls are already showing, what future for the Israeli democracy? There will be probably negotiations for creating a coalition, and the president Rivlin has an important word to say. But the Kahanists will be in the Parliament and together with them, way too much religious people. Fortunatelly, there are still some normal heads among the religious establishment wise enough to know that religion and politics shall be separated otherwise the poison is dangerous for both sides.

The predominance of an unique religious mindset already estranged the diaspora organisations. For years, the Kotel - the Western Wall - is a place of confrontation and exchange of curses. An abnormality despicable for all those involved in the bashing, will be about to become normality. 

Bibi's extremists friends, from Orban Viktor to the Austrian far right party and the Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines will rejoice, but this is the place where the Likud, created in 1973 by Menahem Begin and Ariel Sharon belongs to? Not forget about Putin...Or the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.

Journalists are permanently under threat as the prime-minister and its family hates it. Using a rhetoric familiar to his American friend, he and his wife and the son Yair are labelling easily every news daring to criticize them as 'fake news'. Israel Hayom and the dozen of thousands of boots and fake accounts and media brigades are 'real'. In psychological language it's called being delusional.

If the polls are to be believed, the day after Tuesday will be a sad day, with a new round of witch hunting, with a media under new threats and a deeper division not only between the Jewish/Israeli electorate and the Arab electorate - whose demonization is also part of the current 'Mr. Security's discourse - but between the Jewish/Israeli electorate and the Jewish/Israeli electorate. This division will go far beyond between the Tel Aviv 'party' people and the Haifa 'working people and the Jerusalem 'praying people', but between those who want a better and safe future for their families and children and the one family who's concerned about its own wellbeing. Europe, America and the world, there will be mor and more 'yordim' coming. 

Democracies are dying too and there is nothing that might stop the decline. 

'The Western Wall is long enough to accommodate everyone'

A short quote from the speech delivered by the Blue&White Party Chairman Benny Gantz at the 2019 AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington DC:

'In Bergen-Belsen no one asked, who is Reform and who is Conservative; who is Orthodox and who is secular. Before going into battle, I never checked to see who had a kippa under their helmet. The divisive dialogue tearing our strong nation apart may serve political purposes, but is shredding the fabric that holds us together.

As a proud owner of a red beret, worn by the liberators of the Kotel, I can tell you with confidence that the Western Wall is long enough to accommodate everyone. Everyone! There will be no radicals, from either side of the political map, ruling. There will be no “Kahanists” running our country. There will be no racists leading our state institutions. There will be no corruption leading our way. No corruption whatsoever! The leaders of Israel cannot be led by anything else other than the best interest of Israel and its people'.

Political Memories of an Enfant Terrible of Israeli Politics

I cannot decide if Yair Lapid is a better journalist than politician or the other way round, but his father, Tommy was for sure a journalist first. Part of the first wave of journalists in Eretz Israel, Lapid brought into the country a Mitteleuropean tradition of unconventional debate and anti-iconoclastic fervor. Such people do rarely have followers unless one grew up in the daily ambiance and ambivalence of addressing politics in that part of the world. 

The Memories After My Death was written in 2009 in Hebrew, by Yair, and recently translated into English. Probably between translations and the writing of the son, original nuances were lost, but someone curious both about Tommy Lapid and his times can still receive satisfactory answers to a large array of questions. 

The story is told chronologically, from the childhood years in Novi Sad and Budapest to the first impressions upon landing to Israel and Lapid's adventures in the world of post-communist businesses mediating media purchases in Central and Eastern Europe on behalf of billionaire Robert Maxwell. Episodes of a life well spent taking wholeheartedly all the possible professional and personal challenges. 

My feeling was that the book was pending between a story based on life facts - which is a good approach, as maybe for many mostly of younger age, the interesting past of Tommy Lapid wasn't always obvious - or a story built around ideas and life philosophy - an approach requesting in-depth elaboration. From the last point of view, I think that many of the political controversies he created, especially in relation with the religious mainstream were diplomatically muzzled by the more experienced sabra politician of a son. 

All the observations being made, this book is worth reading it if interested in some historical insights into the recent genesis of Israeli politics and media history. There are echoed from a different time and moral age, a reminder that times are always changing and it is good that way too.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The Askenazi failure

Every time there are elections in Israel, and the results are not satisfactory for some, it starts the search for the guilty part of the society. (Although I wish a lot, I prefer not to talk about the elections right now) Instead of focusing on the real problems and political failures, some (don't expect me to share any of their links) preferred instead to accuse the Mizrahi Jews because...they did not vote with the very confused and unstructured and unreliable leftist parties.
Lacking any inspiration and arguments, some returned to the infamous Askenazi Revolution (HaMahapechah HaAskenazit) of Katznelson. A book which I tried to read and found it libellous and extremely bad written and lacking not only argumentation - how can you have arguments for racist statements against your own people - but also the style of a good writing. The only explanation that such a literary failure was considered a success was probably the political ambiance of the 1960s when many Askenazim, not few of them of German origin, were sharing the same impressions and assumptions and Katznelson just wrote something that the public expected to read.
Ben Gurion himself, who forbade the book later, said in 1966: "We do not want Israelis to become Arabs. We are in duty bound to fight against the spirit of the Levant which corrupts individuals and societies, and preserve the authentic Jewish values as thez crystallized in the diaspora".
In April 22 1949, the journalist Aryeh Gelblum, an immigrant from Poland, wrote in Ha'aretz on the occasion of the arriving of Mizrahi immigrants: 'This is the immigration of a race we have not yet known in the country. We are dealing with people whose primitivism is at a peak, whose level of knowledge is one of virtually absolute ignorance and, worse, who have little talent for understanding anything intellectual. Generally, they are only slighty better than the general level of the Arabs, Negroes and the Berbers in the same region. In any case, they are at an even lower level that we knoa with regard to the former Arabs of Israel. These Jews also lack roots in Judaism, as they are totally insubordinated to savage and primitive instincts. As with Africans, you will find among them gambling, drunkenness and prostitution...chronic laziness, and hatred for work; there is anothing safe about this asocial element. (Even) the kibbutzim will not hear of their absorbtion'.
Being so versed into the racist German theories, result of the assimilation encouraged by the Haskala, made people like Gelblum more 'advanced'? The lack of roots in Judaism is the situation of someone who forgets about the long history of Jewish life in the Middle East, probably less assimilated then their brothers in the industrial Europe.
Years passed and at least officially, such standpoints are not the mainstream, except during and after the election time. Some people from the old generation, may still believe that their racism against Askenazim has any logical, cultural or historical, and even religious base.
A long conversation is such a discussion does have any sense does not make any logic. Just pointing out once in a while how wrong such conversations are is a must. The more we say about it and against it, the better for our sanity.