“Perhaps it’s over,” Yehonatan Geffen wrote in 1973. Not “perhaps.” Definitely. This week the Zionist enterprise will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its greatest accomplishment, the existence of a strong, flourishing state. But the celebrations are taking place at the foot of a volcano that is certain to erupt soon, and the celebrants are people affected with blindness like in the last days of Pompeii. The true head of the octopus that is strangling Israel does not reside in Tehran, and the arms are not terrorist satellites in Lebanon and Yemen. The nation itself is the octopus. A moment before the fireworks and the barbecues, a list of everything you’ve been repressing, all the reasons why Independence Day this year is a black celebration:
1. The dictatorship: The threat is known, there’s no need to expand on it. We can proceed to the other dangers.
2. Benjamin Netanyahu: Even if the government coup is thwarted, Netanyahu will remain, with his corruption trial, and his family, and the devastation he wreaks every day, whether he is in the government or the opposition.
3. The occupation: There is no mass protest movement in Israel against the persistence of the occupation and the apartheid and in favor of the mass evacuation of settlements and of ending the abominable moral crime that Israel has been committing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem for 56 years. At the beginning of Israel’s 76th year, the occupation is etched far deeper into the national DNA than the kova tembel hat, and it enjoys a broad consensus among the country’s Jews. Indeed, there is no democracy with occupation, and from this it follows that there is no democracy, period, and there never will be.
4. The terrorism: Terrorism arising from the occupation is also an integral part of the Israeli way of life. Israelis will continue to live in fear, and to die and be injured in acts of terror.
5. Binational state: Due to the occupation, Israel is already a binational state. Not the state of the Jews. From the perspective of the Zionist enterprise, it is a failure, it is oblivion. Happy Independence Day.
6. The Haredi demographic: The numbers are unequivocal. In 2026, Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews – two anti-Zionist populations – will account for around half of Israel’s elementary school students. And once again, Happy Independence Day to Zionists, and good luck: This statistic guarantees that Israel will quickly become a country with a faltering, Third World economy. These irreversible processes also ensure that in its 100th year Israel will be a kind of theocracy, or it simply won’t be. In any case, chametz in the hospitals will be the least of its worries. First, it has to have hospitals. Which brings us to the next danger.
7. The brain drain: Educated Israelis have already begun to flee, and their numbers will only grow. And that includes physicians. It is possible that an Israeli hospital in 2048 will resemble a synagogue more than an operating room. With God’s help, and you must recite from the Psalms.
8. The cost of living: a major symptom of Israel’s being run not for the welfare of its citizens, but for the welfare of its corrupt rulers. A symbol of Israeli life’s being difficult and unfair and that there is always something more urgent to deal with, for example:
9. The next war: It is on its way, this is said openly, and it will be harder and more brutal for the home front than all its predecessors, multi-front and replete with missiles that will be rained down on unprotected residents from all sides. The scenarios promise hell on earth. And the post-traumatic stress is likely to diminish slightly the effects of the next octopus arm on the list:
10. Environmental crisis: The psychotic birth rates among Haredim also guarantee that Israel will be horrifically overcrowded, polluted and passing out from the intense heat (because there’s not even room on this list for the neglected climate crisis).
11. Education. The children are ignorant, but what’s important is that they wear white shirts for the Memorial Day ceremony.