A society falling apart

** From the Second Lebanon War to the Gaza flotilla - and this period includes Operation Cast Lead - Israel's failures have been much greater than its successes. Against this backdrop, Israel's moral crisis is getting deeper all the time.


By Zeev Sternhell

Among the regimes in the Western world, Israel stands out with certain characteristics that generally do not indicate a strong democratic system. Its parliament is paralyzed, the opposition is nonexistent, and contempt for the law is becoming more pronounced. This not only refers to the unrest caused by the ultra-Orthodox, but also to something much more dangerous, the unrest caused by the settlers. The "respectable" right has chosen leaders of the most dangerous kind, like Moshe Ya'alon, who erases the line between Likud's level-headed elements and the extremist "Feiglins" and far-right National Union party. In the not-too-distant future, they will replace Likud's current leadership, which itself is much less restrained than the veteran Revisionists.

Moreover, the political leadership and the ruling elites, including the military elite, evince a worrisome lack of talent. From the Second Lebanon War to the Gaza flotilla - and this period includes Operation Cast Lead - Israel's failures have been much greater than its successes. Against this backdrop, Israel's moral crisis is getting deeper all the time. Israeli society is disintegrating into layers and blocs that have totally different worldviews and historical visions. More and more, these hostile blocs lack a mutual national objective.

The moral and intellectual disintegration also contributes to the gradual loss of social solidarity and mutual responsibility. Notwithstanding the vital struggle TheMarker is conducting against the tycoons and the enslavement to big business, this is not a comprehensive economic alternative for reducing inequality. The alienation between the sections of society that differ over the country's political future is increasing, no less than the alienation between social strata and population sectors whose ways of life are as different as east from west.

All these phenomena must be dealt with, first on the political level. Therefore, for change to be possible, a political engine is necessary. Regrettably, this type of machine no longer exists here. Led by Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak, the Labor Party betrayed its role; it is heading toward liquidating itself. Peres' desertion in the 2006 elections to Kadima was merely a symptom of the illness, but on that occasion, the depth of the degeneration was revealed.


remainder in full: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/a-society-falling-apart-1.300883

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It is worth mentioning that Barak, by virtue of his position as defense minister, is also the West Bank's military governor. Viewers of the Channel 10 news last Friday were amazed to see a scene that seemed to belong to the world of sick imagination: To shorten the route to the Cave of the Patriarchs for the Jews of Hebron, the windows of Arabs' homes that the worshipers pass were sealed off. You had to rub your eyes to believe how the colonial power allows itself to make life so unbearable for the natives. Not only were their windows sealed, but access to their homes was made especially difficult - just for the convenience of the occupiers.

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...and is likely to become even more so in the future. According to a poll I read about a couple of months ago, the young people in Israel (and, thus, the future electorate there) is even more hard-line, anti-Palestinian, and supportive of the ultra-Orthodox than their parents and grandparents. Labor "leaders" like Peres and Barak spent the past dozen years or more presiding over the self-destruction of their party (imagine if the entire leadership of the Democratic Party was made up of DLCers), and have been so ready to run away from any of their party's principles, that, by now, there is only one acceptable set of political beliefs in Israel. Can we be surprised that, after more than a decade of being told that, Israeli youth have come to accept the Likudnik viewpoint as "the way things are"...?

:-(

When you've got IDF forces wearing t-shirts with the picture of a pregnant Palestinian woman in the crosshairs, with the caption "One shot - Two kills," I can only wonder if the Israeli reality has gone so far past "the world of sick imagination," that such a concept would no longer be understandable there.

I remember, back when George Wallace was governor of Alabama, and was in trouble for one or another economic mess, he used to say "No problem. I'll just attack the n*****s again, and the voters will love me." It looks like Israel's government works from the same playbook -- when people get pissed-off about their economic lot, just expropriate more Palestinian land, or seal up the windows on their homes, or kill a bunch of peace activists, and "everyone will remember that we're on their side against those filthy, evil Palestinians, and the voters will love us."