" [IT] was reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu asked the state to expand security for his son Yair – an unemployed adult who lives in Miami."
How Israeli Citizens Woke Up One Morning to Find They Had Become Giant Insects
Tova Herz lOct 18, 2024 3:51 am IDT
Last month, just before six young Israeli hostages were murdered by their kidnappers in a tunnel in Gaza after almost a year in Hamas captivity, it was reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu asked the state to expand security for his son Yair – an unemployed adult who lives in Miami.
The gap between what increasingly appears to be Netanyahu's disregard for the lives of hostages and his concern for the welfare of his own family (while Yair's contemporaries are called to their third and fourth rounds of reserve duty) brings to mind Franz Kafka, the centenary of whose death is marked this year.
In Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa, an ordinary young man, wakes up one morning and discovers that he has become a giant insect. Coincidentally, something similar happened to me – and to you, dear readers. For decades, I was a citizen, with a set of rights and obligations clearly defined by law. The authorities worked for me, and they knew it. To my amazement, I discovered that within a short period of time, I was transformed into a subject; my role is now to serve the government and stand out of its way.
This realization was triggered by the conduct of Transport Minister Miri Regev, who was recently tasked with planning the official October 7 memorial ceremony, even as the rate of motor accidents is rising and Israeli roads are uniquely jammed.
Regev announced that she would move forward with the ceremony arrangements, dismissing critics – including those personally affected by the massacre – as mere "background noise." The regime wants a ceremony? It will have a ceremony! And the citizens will act as smiling cooperative background extras.
Two ceremonies were held that day. The official pre-recorded event was preceded by a live event initiated by survivors and families of victims and funded by their supporters, which had more viewers. But Kafka does not rest! The government has since decided to hold yet another official event, this time around the Hebrew date of the attack, some three weeks after October 7. Once again, our venerable Transport Minister showed who's in charge. Israel's economy may be in tatters, but what's a million shekels between friends?
Or, take demonstrations – a basic right in democracies, as long as they remain within the bounds of the law. Armed incursions into military bases clearly do not meet this standard, yet none of those who stormed two bases several months ago to protest the arrest of soldiers accused of sodomizing a captive have been detained.
Meanwhile, anti-government protestors are regularly taken in, sometimes for the sin of wearing a t-shirt with a slogan that displeases a police officer – a public servant whose authority is granted solely to maintain law and order."
Judges release these "cotton criminals," believing that neither the state nor its officials are above the law. Yet one must wonder how much longer this final safeguard of citizens' rights will hold before it, too, crumbles.
Kafka doesn't explain what caused Gregor Samsa's transformation, but it is all too clear how we, the citizens, became subjects. In the November 2022 elections, the Netanyahu bloc secured just 30,000 more votes than its opponents – around 0.6% of those who cast ballots. Surplus vote agreements, sectoral voting patterns, and the egos of politicians like Merav Michaeli combined to create a solid bloc of 64 out of 120 Knesset members, recently expanded to 68 with the addition of Gideon Sa'ar and his faction. The members of this coalition diligently guard each other's interests and treat elections as though – just like in Russia and elsewhere – democracy begins and ends at the ballot box.
In "The Trial," another work by Kafka, Citizen K, an ordinary person, falls victim to a system determined to follow its cruel course to the bitter end – K's end, not the system's. Anyone seeking to understand the meaning of "Kafkaesque" need not read the book. Just look around, and be very afraid."
The writer is a former ambassador.