Israel’s president warns of growing social schism, loss of moral compass
JVL Introduction
Ben Caspit is a senior columnist for the leading Israeli daily Ma’ariv, a regular TV commentator on politics in Israel, and biographer – and unstinting critic – of Benjamin Netanyahu.
In this article he talks about “the flames licking at the edges of Israeli society”, talking of a society on the edge of civil war.
And President Reuven Rivlin saying publicly at the opening of the new Knesset (parliament) session on 12th October that: “It seems to me as if we have lost the moral compass that was with us from the state’s independence until today…”
Here Caspit describes the intense social schisms that are tearing Israeli society apart.
This article was originally published by Al-Monitor on Tue 13 Oct 2020. Read the original here.
Israel’s president warns of growing social schism, loss of moral compass
Loading article text…
This post is interesting, as the most vehement denunciation of official Israeli policies I have ever heard have been from young Israeli Jews still living in Israel.
I feel that no outsider could have had the knowledge, or courage to state so bluntly what they objected to but those of us inside a system with which we disagree should be the first to challenge that system.
What these young people had to say on the internet was shocking!
I have no great knowledge of internal Israeli politics nor do I wish to “rush to judgement” on Israel but if the anger expressed by some of their citizens is to be taken seriously then it seems that Israeli official policies must be held to account
Having previously lived in Israel for many years I think memories are short. The atmosphere today resembles the absolute chaos in the early ninetees when Likud imploded with internal hate under Shamir and a decade or so later it was a Sharon vs Netanyahu brawl over disengagement from Gaza. Rabin kept the “non-right” together in ’92 and was victorious but today there is no-one of that stature to lead a united non-right coalition, not Gantz and not Lapid so Netanyahu justs kicks on while the country tears itself apart, and Caspit’s analogy with the destruction of the temples is spot on.
“Here Caspit describes the intense social schisms that are tearing Israeli society apart.”
Caspit does nothing of the sort: quite the opposite. He writes
“There are no disagreements over security issues. There are no particularly disruptive social-economic struggles.”,
and proceeds absurdly to reduce all social relations to a war between an “only Netanyahu tribe” and an “anyone but Netanyahu tribe”. The apartheid oppression is of course ignored despite Rivlin’s mention of “Arabs” as one Israel’s “tribes”, as of course are the extreme social class divisions: a taboo subject in polite circles, despite Caspit’s own remark that one million Israelis are out of work.
This is a worthless frothy piece of writing from an Israeli journalist infamous for his opinion, expressed in 2017, about the appropriate treatment of Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi who slapped an IDF soldier:
“…in the case of the girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras”.
https://mondoweiss.net/2017/12/journalist-unspeakable-backpedal/
The Zionist enterprise which is Israel NEVER had a moral compass.
If like the rest of the world, Israel is bankrupt, then priorities have to be agreed and a broad coalition formed to establish the new normal
Biden could make it work, but don’t hold your breath, we are all sick of voting and yet the same Cockwombles get in