On Sunday, 15 July 2007, Israel installed her ninth state president, Shim’on Peres. Yediot Ahronot, on the front page of its Sunday edition (the Friday edition of the newspaper is the weekend edition here – the Sunday paper is analogous to the Monday edition elsewhere), carried a photo of Peres, presumably taking the oath of office, with the Hebrew headline, yomó hagadól (his big day). Congratulations poured in from throughout the world, from the American president to the pope on his accession to what is likely his final role in the history of the country. But while for Shim’on Peres, it was a big day, for the rest of us in Israel, it was just one more day being cut by the shards of shattered illusions.
When a writer for the left wing Haaretz, which continuously attempts to erase away the existential threats facing the nation in the smoke and mirrors of pseudo-intellectuality, admits for example that, “this society, whose ties of solidarity had already been eroded, now appears to be falling apart. When sentiments like ‘There is no state’ reflect the feelings of residents of both the North and the South, when the State of Tel Aviv has cut off its bilateral relations with the State of Israel and makes do with collecting donations for that other, poor country, every man is left to his own fate,” a truly bitter recognition of reality is in the offing.
To get a feeling for why, let us go back to the 2005 expulsion of Jewish residents from Gush Qatif in the Gaza Strip. This expulsion was supposed to bring a measure of security to the country by reducing the exposure of troops to terrorist attack, and pulling soldiers and people out of an “indefensible position” amidst “millions of Arabs.” In addition, by removing our “occupation” over Gaza, we were supposed to obtain for ourselves the right to carpet bomb the place if the terrorists dared raise a hand against us. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon got plenty of slaps on the back from our “allies” in America and Europe. But the residents of S’derot and the kibbutzim around the Strip got nothing but increased rocket attacks; the former residents of Gaza got nothing but the back of the hand from an arrogant, smirking secular elite from the “State of Tel Aviv” that had “stuck it to the Jews” but good, depriving them of homes, schools and livelihoods all in one shot, making them internal exiles in their own country for being stupid enough to believe Ariel Sharon when he told them in 2003, “Gush Qatif is as much part of Israel as Tel Aviv.”
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1 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
This article contemplating "What if Israel Didn't Exist?" examines the realities of the world, as opposed to the fantasies spun by the "poor Palestinian" whiners...
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