Yes, you read right. Tomorrow at 7 am I will be on the safest airplane on the planet - or one of them, anyway! All Israeli airplanes, including the El-Al flight I'm booked for tomorrow morning, have the anti-missile laser system as standard. So, while wimpy American and European carriers cancel flights, including my own, Israeli grit and ingenuity, like it or hate it, will prevail.
At least, that's how the Israelis view it. And while I rather detest some of the rhetoric and trends going on in Israeli society right now, as well as some of the unconstrained military tactics used against Hamas (although, to be clear, I hate Hamas's cowardly and self-serving tactics much more), I am grateful that Israel does not let uncertain circumstances shut it down. I respect that tenacity, and today, as I prepare to head out, I am very glad for it.
I thought I would put down some final thoughts, but I find myself adrift amidst a sea of thoughts and ambivalence. The vast majority of Israeli society unquestionably supports the current operation, Protective Edge, in Gaza. Even the moderates and the left talk of final victory over the militant organization dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish State. (This without asking how a military can possibly hope to win an ideological war. America couldn't in Vietnam nor in Iraq or Afghanistan. Palestinians are fighting for what they view as their freedom, and Americans and Israelis alike should be among the people of the world most acquainted with the determination of a people fighting for their freedom.) And while the world joins in the humanitarian outcry (somewhat ignorantly, I must say), Israel just digs in deeper, reassuring itself that it has every right and imperative to defend itself. (Israel has seemingly long given up on attempting to convince the world of its right to defend itself - the world seems to believe that hundreds of Jews must die before that becomes an imperative; likewise, many Jews have long given up on the hope that the world will help Israel defend itself, so it doesn't have to do it alone - again, the price is too high, so it takes care of itself.)
I don't know whether there will be a ceasefire soon. I do hope so. Now the death toll has reached well over a thousand in Gaza. The number is so abstract to me, so faceless. So too is the destruction of life and home. I hurt for the people of Gaza in a very removed way, and it bothers me that such destruction and devastation are so impersonal to me. But nor would I prefer it to become personal. I am caught between feeling powerless against such all-encompassing suffering, and not feeling it at all. Recently, I heard that children in Gaza under a certain age will have known nothing but this state of war, of destitution and hatred in their formative years. What will this generation be? How can they ever learn to function in any kind of actual peaceful society? On the flip side, what has generations of threat and isolation, not even to mention residual Holocaust trauma, done in Israel?
What bothers me most is the rise in Jewish Israeli national sentiment expressed in hatred for Arabs - all Arabs. This kind of blind callousness disturbs and disgusts me. Israel, of all people, should be conscious of the dangers of bigotry. I'm all for national pride and supporting those who keep us secure, but to carry it to the demonization of those whose ties to our enemy frighten us, in this case, Arab Israelis - this is unacceptable. Becoming a bully to feel strong is simply masked weakness. It happens and has happened everywhere - and goodness knows the United States certainly in not free of blame in this regard. But I cannot and will not condone it. My social-consciousness cries against it for logical reasons: society cannot carry on, let alone thrive, under such circumstances. But also the very core of my being resists it - I have always been deeply bothered by contention, and I find myself seeking common ground in which to nurture love. Sometimes I feel that this is simply naiveté and talking this way actually reveals my weakness. That may be the case, but I just don't care.
My initial title for this post was going to be something along the lines of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State. Outlasting conflicts and crises, this seems to be the enduring question in Israel. And everyone has an opinion. Can a modern state call itself Jewish, but still be democratic? What does it mean to be democratic, or Jewish, for that matter? Is a state that is Jewish a theocracy? Is it an ethnocracy? Does this mean that those who are not Jews must forever be relegated to second-class citizens? All these are valid questions, and all kinds of scholars and critics and commentators have weighed in on the topic. I'll say this: Considering that most states have had at least several hundred years to develop and mature, and taking into account Israel's very serious security concerns that have plagued it from the day the British government rolled out of Jerusalem on May 14, 1948, I think one must conclude that Israel does pretty well. No other state, even in enlightened Europe, can boast the kind of democratic record that Israel does. And no state, not one, can claim a clean record regarding its treatment of minorities, ethnic, religious, or otherwise. Israel, although it has a microscope on it all the time and all the world is ready to criticize this Jewish experiment in the world's most coveted Land, does pretty well.
But I fear that "pretty well" is really a crumbling facade masking a deep fissure that may prove Israel's downfall. If it cannot master its security concerns, while maintaining a society in which at least the majority embraces democracy, not bully tactics, it will find itself joining the tide of civil war sweeping across the Middle East. The vast majority of Israel's Arab citizens, while deeply dissatisfied with the social inequality (which is not as great as that in most countries, but does exist) and angry about recent Jewish attacks on innocent and loyal (by all counts) Arab citizens, are generally happy to be citizens of the Jewish State that offers them a much higher standard of living and much greater democracy than any other state in the Middle East. But this summer has convinced me of two things: 1. Israel is becoming much less democratic than it has been; and 2. It's Arab citizens will not take it forever.
On that happy note, I think I'm going to wander down and drop off my cell phone, print off my boarding pass, and get ready to head out.
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