The news is starting to give me that same feeling as when I read certain books. I love to read, but sometimes the more I get "into" a book the sicker I feel. It's so obvious that something really awful is going to happen. In the end, they may end up "living happily ever after," but my kishkes just can't take the horror in between.
A few years ago I started reading The Firm by John Grisham, but I felt that it was just too obvious what was going to happen, and the main characters were just too nice and really stupid--any idiot could see what they were getting into. So I stopped reading the book before I hit the middle. Recently, I began reading The Majority Rules by Eugene Sullivan, and I'm getting that same awful feeling, so I may as well just throw it out.
It's not so easy when it's not just some novel or movie of the "thriller," "horror story" genre. The story that is making me sick is history in the making, the goings on of the Israeli Government.
I'm not the only one who considered Disengagement bad, real bad! And it was so clear that it wasn't the main course.
I didn't mind when Sharon and Olmert were using their "honey" to attract corrupt and overly ambitious, self-centered politicians to their party, Kadima. I felt that it provided a necessary "cleansing" of our political establishment. Just like many new political parties, that rapidly ballooned and burst leaving barely remembered postscripts in history texts, I was enthusiastically awaiting its death, long before it reached its peak.
I'm not as optimistic as former minister, Moshe Arens, who thinks that Kadima's demise is imminent, and we that can do without new elections.
I would like to see the other parties pledge not to accept any Kadima Knesset Members, nor those who ran on the list, as party members. There should be a political Cherem on all who played a role in Kadima.
Israel has been plagued by fickle, opportunist politicians who change parties, like hair-do's. They have no "truths," no ideology except for their own advancement. Let Kadima and its politicians just shrivel up and disappear, eaten up by their own empty ambitions.
At this point I'm being cheered by the impromptu coalition, which is attempting to set up a State Commission to investigate the government's handling of the recent war. I have no doubt that it will be very difficult to find officials who aren't involved in one way or another. That's one of the disadvantages of being such a small country.
While all this is going on, the Israeli President, Moshe Katzav, who was elected because he seemed to be a unifying figure and "squeaky clean," is being interrogated by the police on charges of sexual harassment. In addition, now that his teflon's scraped off, there are also charges that he he illegally granted pardons to prisoners.
What else should we expect? Are the surprises over, or have they hardly begun?
I'm expecting bad news from Moetzet YESHA. They lost my respect during the struggle to cancel Disengagement. I can't credit them with one good move. And if Anshel Pfeffer of the Jerusalem Post is right, there will be some bad news from Moetzet YESHA. I'm sure that Otniel Schneller, now in Kadima, but was formerly Secretary General of Moetzet YESHA, who enthusiastically joined Olmert in planning how to transfer, exile, Jewish Israelis from their homes in Judea and Samaria, isn't the only Moetzet YESHA member suffering from Olmert's "Fatigue Syndrome." Maybe that's part of the reason they did such a tragically poor job against Disengagement.
Another thing making me nervous is this reliance on Public Relations firms to help politicians. They're hired to get people elected, not to make good clean government policies and develop the country. Don't forget that Ehud Barak's campaign pledge to leave Lebanon was suggested by professionals, professional election advisors, not defense experts!
Our defense, our very existence is no more than a public relations campaign. "Will it play in Peoria?" Instead of:
Will it increase security?
Will it be good for the future of the State of Israel?
And the worst of it is that most Israelis are no brighter than the characters in the books I can't finish reading.
5 comments:
Take a few minutes to relax with this.
The Israeli public is brainwashed by media and browbeaten by the legal, judicial and police authorities. The only way to break that stranglehold is a major campaign against the mass media, especially television but also the mass circulation daily newspapers. Otherwise intelligent people have no critical sense regarding what they see written in the papers and shown on TV. How about a series of TV and newspaper burnings in conspicuous locations. There is a very good Hebrew book written on the problems of television. It should be given out at the TV-burning demonstrations.
a cherem on kadima party members sounds like a good idea, if we could get it accepted... the probelm is the internal structure of Israeli politics, which puts a special value on present knesset members. TV burnings and newspaper burnings, on the other hand, don't seem like a good idea, since they will remind many of previous demonstrations by our enemies. but on the positive side, there are more and more young people in Israel who do not give much credence to the media.
seems to me that our best bet is alternative communications. keep up the good fight, and be careful about judgements of the people... even when intelligence is lacking, a good heart can make all the difference.
Josh, great pictures.
goyish, the burnings won't help. Though I think using the internet versions is good, since the newspapers are free this way.
shimonz, how about a campaign making it clear that we won't vote for parties that have former Kadima mk's?
I accept the point about burning. But we need a mainstream media boycott. If large numbers of people stop buying the newspapers and watching television, the commercial giants who depend on advertising will be in a state of panic. The question is what is the eye-catcher that will trump the television and return Yosi Israeli to a state of unbrainwashed sanity and independence? What is the street theater combined with the free book on television that will get people in numbers to go the extra mile and dump the mainstream media?
Post a Comment