The Messianic Brothers are Doing Israel In
The
power freaks running the government are perpetuating poverty and the occupation
while alienating Israel's greatest friends.
By Shaul Arieli
| Oct. 7, 2014 | Haaretz
“Time is on our side” is the hollow
mantra of Naftali Bennett and Uri Ariel of Habayit Hayehudi, along with their
brothers in Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu and Yesh Atid. The leftists are tired
Zionists, they claim, while appropriating the Zionist project for their
messianic ideology. We’ll get the world used to our caprices, they tell anyone
who wonders where they’re heading.
But the Jewish year 5775 is
beginning and refusing to get used to anything. Some 1.5 million Israelis
ushered in the new year at meals funded by donations from good people. The
number of Israelis in the cycle of poverty grows each year; most of the poor
work.
The gaps are increasing, but the
messianic brothers have a solution: Join us in the welfare state in the West
Bank. “We doubled the budgets for Judea and Samaria,” boasts the previous
finance minister, the embodiment of the vision of socialist Zionism.
The frequent rounds of violence
take their toll in blood and damage to the economy. They’re responsible for
budget cuts in both primary and higher education, and undermine the welfare and
health services. This mainly affects poorer people, of course. While the Jewish
brothers are once again proposing that we occupy Gaza, the education minister
is explaining that “there was a war” and it wouldn’t be right “to curtail the
vision of Greater Israel.”
Nor is the international community
getting used to anything. Israel’s standing continues to suffer, especially
among those closest to us, the United States and Western Europe. The disgust at
our continued domination of another nation is eroding cultural, economic and
scientific ties with the rest of the world.
The United States is undergoing
demographic changes, as well as a change in priorities. Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu the Americanologist doesn’t realize how U.S. support is slipping
through his fingers. Others, drunk on imaginary power, promise us that the
world won’t move without that Israeli app Waze. Particles won’t accelerate
without Jewish genius.
The Jewish brothers who continue to
put “Jewish” before “democratic” refuse to notice North American Jews’
reservations about Israel. They eschew the two-state idea, repudiate
liberalism, sanctify power and practice discrimination.
Even “united” Jerusalem is not
cooperating with the security hawks. In our eternal capital the nationalist and
religious tensions are deepening, and violence is increasing. The city’s
poverty on both sides of the Green Line puts most of its children, both Jewish
and Arab, below the poverty line. Most of its residents are anti-Zionists.
Meanwhile, many young Israelis have
stopped believing that time is on the side of messianic Zionism. The cost of
living, reserve duty and mainly the absence of faith in government policy are
pushing them to a future on the other side of the ocean. No, they aren’t tired.
The residents of the western Negev near Gaza, a stronghold of genuine Zionism, aren’t
spoiled, as some people accuse them of being.
They simply understand that an
honest attempt at achieving peace doesn’t mean rejecting the two-state idea,
ostracizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, torpedoing any attempt to
include Hamas in the diplomatic process and continuing unbridled construction
in the West Bank. They understand the real price, both economic and moral, in
the refusal to separate ourselves from the Palestinians.
Time remains indifferent and does
not sanctify the artificial status quo. Waiting around the corner isn’t a
binational state, but one state – whose characteristics are far from any divine
or other promise. It’s a state that even a messiah wouldn’t be able to cleanse.
