Hamas War

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

The Advantage of the "Israeli Bubble," or Eye of the Storm

Quite a number of years ago, I blogged on Arutz 7's English site.  Actually I probably still can, since they didn't tell me to stop.  I just found it time consuming and there were too many quirks to the process needed.  I called my A7 blog "The Eye of the Storm."  That's because things do look different and lots calmer in my hometown of Shiloh than you'd think from what you read or hear in the media.

The Forward has an article claiming that our "Israeli Bubble" is dangerous and shields us from reality.
Ironic, but also predictable. The effectiveness of the barrier is twofold: It has stopped terrorist attacks, and it also has made it possible to live in (West) Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv and pretend that the Occupation doesn’t exist.
Unfortunately, this is a delusion — a bubble — with severe consequences. South Jerusalem, after all, is home not just to the German Colony’s liberals, but also to the neocons at the Shalem Center, now Shalem College, who for decades have peddled the idea that there is no hope for peace with the Palestinians, and (in the words of Daniel Gordis, one of Shalem’s most articulate spokesmen) we should settle in for 100 years of occupation. Regrettable, Rabbi Gordis says, but inevitable.
This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course. Claim that there’s no Palestinian partner, undermine those Palestinians who are, and lo and behold, soon there will be no Palestinian partner. If you will it, the 100-year war will be no dream.
But the real delusion is deeper still: that somehow, the rest of the world will sit idly by and allow this situation to worsen, year after year, decade after decade, without finally turning on Israel. In the bubble of southern Jerusalem, Israel is a complex but miraculous place where kids can play in the street, the Jews have a home and bus drivers read Shakespeare. The matzav, the “situation” with the Palestinians, is an unfortunate side-note to an otherwise complicated, fascinating, problematic, multi-faceted, beautiful, tragic enterprise in Jewish self-determination.
Outside the bubble, however, the Palestinian “situation” is not a side-note but the primary tune. It’s everything else about Israel that is merely secondary. To most of the world, Israel is defining itself by the Occupation, and all the rest is commentary.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/181552/forgetting-the-mideast-conflict-is-easy-in-israel/?p=all#ixzz2bALHnLIM
Wine glasses create non-uniform
distortion of their background
I disagree.  I think we see things much more clearly from here.  There are no distortions.  When you look into a "bubble" from the outside you won't get an accurate view.

Over twenty years ago, when one of my daughters was looking for a place to do Sherut Le'umi, National Service, she and a few friends went to a city they considered far from the then intifada and politics of the yishuvim (Jewish communities in YESHA, Judea, Samaria and Gaza) they lived in.  They just wanted what they imagined to be a "normal" place.  Imagine their surprise when the greatest topic of conversation at the Shabbat table was  happening in YESHA.  At home they didn't hear as much. 

Here in Shiloh we go on with our lives.  The parents of young children are worrying about who will be teaching their kids next year and rushing around to buy books, clothes and school supplies, just like everyone else.

In Yafiz, (and Rami Levy,) Sha'ar Binyamin, where I work, Jews and Arabs are jostling around together shopping.  We're living proof that people like Jay Michaelson who wrote the Forward article haven't a clue.  They're letting their ideology distort their vision.

The calm here isn't a lie.  The Left and all those who claim that the Arabs will explode in violence aren't objectively predicting.  They are instigating and encouraging Arab violence by making excuses and rationales for the Arabs.

I'm on the inside.  I work with Arabs.  And if the world, including Israeli Leftists, media, politicians, academics and community workers would just leave things alone we would eventually achieve a true peace.  It will take a long, long time, but it can happen.

True peace can't be negotiated.  True peace comes from the inside and works its way out.  Faux peace, implemented by "treaties" is external and wears off, like the "democracy" of the "Arab Spring," which has been proven a deadly farce.

4 comments:

Batya said...

good points, Janet (or is it goyish?)
I don't think any of the Arabs really want to live under their own sort of rule now that they know another life.

Anonymous said...

batya, do you have an email. thanks.

goyisherebbe said...

The Arabs are having a great time in Jerusalem. They ride the train into town and go shopping, hang out in cafes and restaurants, kids in tow. They get away from the Islamic nightmare for little while. The problem is not the Occupation, it is the nightmare of their own making. We need to engage them on the personal level. We need to learn Arabic, even they can talk to us in Hebrew or English. Israel needs to intervene in their formal and informal educational system and counterbalance the hatred that is taught systematically in the schools and media. We need psychologists and social workers working on systemic family and social abuse. In order to do that we need to be strong and tough and positive in the belief that THIS IS OUR LAND and that there is really ONLY ONE PEOPLE in it, and they are not going to go away. Check out Tzvi Misinai, former hi-tech entrepreneur turned researcher into the origins of the so-called Palestinians. We have met the enemy and they are us.

Batya said...

goyish, got it. You have previously posted as your wife...

10, shilohmuse at gmail dot com