If the culture of lies was not so deeply rooted in the relations between the rulers and the public, if on television, which remains our chief source of information, they employed journalists rather than “talent,” last week we would have gotten answers to questions that needed to be asked but weren’t. Instead, we got nationalist kitsch and pseudo-military rhetoric.
The “talent” are not journalists. They don’t ask questions. They know better than anyone how to create drama because drama boosts ratings, while difficult questions lower them. They portrayed the as a battle between giants, as war straight out of Hollywood. Hercules vs. Godzilla. The next minute, they would scream that it was a war of the few against the many (and guess who we are). The bombing of Gaza was covered as if it were the Battle of Stalingrad.
If there were journalists in the studio, they would have asked how it is that 176,000 regular troops and a half-million reservists with missiles that each cost $70,000 cannot defeat 6,000 terrorists with rockets that carry a price tag of $600? Not just last week but over the past 20 years, how is it that we have been destroying and killing without changing the power relations between the sides?
They also needed to ask: How is it that the citizens of a modern country have to go down into shelters once a year in submission, in resignation, without complaint, as if it is self-evident that life is a long war with cease-fires in between? How were we sold on the idea that there is “no solution”? How does the world’s most moral army always succeed in killing women and children? It’s not just that these trivial questions aren’t answered, they’re never asked.
In the face of this silence, the protest movement arose. The “judicial coup” was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It alone was not the straw, nor was it the war in Gaza, nor the millions to the Haredi parasites, nor the rising prices, but the convergence of all these and the lies they brought along.
The lies are the bad cholesterol that accumulates on the walls of the blood vessels, they are the fat cells that clog the arteries. The Haredi, ultranationalist and criminal cells – all of them are related, the occupation to the corruption and the corruption to the extreme nationalism. Eliminate one and others develop. The lying cells never die, they just keep multiplying.
When the lies keep accumulating, the arteries become blocked, perspiration increases and breath becomes short. These are lies that were told to us and that we told ourselves. The lie that “we can manage the conflict,” the lie that “the Haredim will be integrated,” the lie that “the people should choose their judges,” the lie of a “united Jerusalem” and the lie that “if we talk we’ll reach an agreement.” We won’t. Agreements can only be reached with solidarity. But our solidarity has disintegrated into loathing and disgust, each of us with our brand of disgust – with the occupation, with the Haredim, with the Ashkenazim/Mizrahim. Only the feeling that everything stinks is what unites us – along with the idea that what was will never be again.
Even if there was once a strong sense of solidarity here, it will never return. Without it, there will be no equality – not in the army, not in the economy and not in education. There is no “partial justice” and no “judicial balance.” The divisive genie that wiped out solidarity cannot be put back in the bottle. The greedy, lying leader who took him out cannot be returned to Caesarea. The division of Israel into sectors and tribes is a fact. The property tax fund suits the kind of society that no longer exists here.
A divided society had to find a way to live together with the recognition that it is made up of differing components. We can’t live apart, but we can learn to live side by side. The government must provide basic services to all, nothing more. The secular will no longer fund the ultra-Orthodox, the left will no longer defend the settlers. The Haredim won’t “kosher” electricity? Then they can pay for it. Rockets fall on Sderot? That’s their problem. Rockets fall on Tel Aviv? That’s our problem. The mayor of Sderot longs for the days of Operation Protective Edge? Let him find the 74 young people who paid with their lives in defense of his city.
The protests emerged because the sense of revulsion had reached its limit. We are fed up with the situation, with the corrupt government, with an opposition that is out of touch. We are likewise tired of the self-righteous protest movement that takes upon itself, instead of the government, the responsibility for the safety of the demonstrators. We are tired of a movement that in its effort to ensure diversity and inclusion does not know what they want, or does know but is afraid to admit it – that it wants to get Bibi out of our lives. And, to remove any doubt, as soon as possible, in the most democratic, most legal, most Jewish way possible, but to get rid of him.