Netanyahu's
deceptive discourse forces Israelis to ask: What do we want?
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The
choice of a messianic, racist, Jewish society is not yet accepted by most
Israelis - so Netanyahu has made the tactical decision to conceal present his
actions as a prolonged reprisal action, By Sefi Rachlevsky | Haaretz Sep. 30, 2014 |
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Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’
address at the United Nations is an important part of his movement toward an
upheaval in Israel. It’s a continuation of the identity putsch in his “Jewish
state” campaign.”
At
its core, Zionism was an attempt to wrest Jewish identity from the hands of
hostile non-Jews and take possession of it. Netanyahu’s move does just the
opposite. His use of fear tactics is not “solely,” or even mainly, aimed at
returning the Jews to the ghetto defined by non-Jewish racism. Through his
all-consuming focus on “exposing” the intentions of others, Netanyahu is
dismantling independent Israeli identity and Israeli choice. The question of
“What do we want?” was disposed of, almost the same way that Yitzhak Rabin, one
of the symbols of the world of this question, was disposed of, together with
the decision to adopt his order of priorities.
There
is a symbolic aspect to Netanyahu’s focus on the UN and the fact that he does
so in English. Gone is the talk of universal Jewish ideas about the family of
nations, the Hebrew Ben-Gurionism of “oom shmoom” to dismiss the UN or
“It doesn’t matter what the goyim say, but what the Jews do.” Instead, we have
the exact opposite: an identity that is dictated by others and presented as an
endless reprisal action to the primary move of exposing gentile racism.
Behind
all of this is a great deceit. There is no greater success for Netanyahu than
the repeated asking of the question, “What does he want?” and answering that
all he wants is to remain in power. The truth is very different. After all, the
settlement enterprise, that Kookian enterprise of Rabbi Dov Lior and Naftali
Bennett, is entirely an Israeli choice — and from their perspective, a Jewish
choice. It is an arrogant, messianic, racist choice by the “chosen people.” But
since this choice of a messianic, racist, Jewish society, a society of extreme
inequality, a society without borders, a society of settlements, is not yet
accepted by most Israelis, Netanyahu has made the tactical decision to conceal
this fact for now and to instead present his actions as a prolonged reprisal
action, the response of the eternal Jewish victim to ongoing anti-Jewish
hostility.
It
is clear that all of Netanyahu’s activity is deliberate and planned, from the
complete support of the settlement enterprise, through the Judaization of
Israel, his more than nodding support for incitement against Arabs and the
left, the crushing of the free media and the imposition of extreme capitalism
that leads to record inequality. But because it is so extreme, he feels the
need to disguise it and present it as ongoing retaliation. If as a result the
basis for Hebrew identity — the independent, confident identity that was a
central tenet to the creation of Labor Zionism — is undermined, all the better.
From
this, we get to one of the changes that Israel’s non-right must make in order
to keep the deceptive discourse of the right from dominating. Instead of
pinning its hopes on “peace,” thereby helping Netanyahu to frame the
anti-Zionist debate of “Who are the goyim?,” “What do they want to do to us?”
and “Can we trust them?,” with all its racist responses, the non-right would do
well as to ask the fundamental Zionist question: What do we want?
This,
in many respects, is how the Bible was made: through choice. And it is
definitely the way modern Jewish identity developed — by pouncing on the
promises of the French Revolution in order to rescue itself from an identity
held by others into an identity constructed from free choice.
The
non-right has the power to return to the path that created Israel’s
independence and its Declaration of Independence; the path that asks, What does
Israel want? What does Israel need? The substantive answers are a free and
egalitarian society, not one that is racist-religious; a society that is sure
of itself. A society with borders. A society that doesn’t create a new, inverted
Pale of Settlement beyond its borders, in which the Jews are citizens and their
neighbors are not. A society that isn’t obsessed with exposing non-Jewish evil,
but with developing Israeli power, freedom, spirit, self-confidence and
justice.
