A summer to forget

I am positively drained. This summer of rockets, political scandals and hatred has taken its toll, and I feel horribly, horribly burned out. I am tired of hearing about the war, and have neither patience nor sympathy for the public figures who are trying to weasel out of truly taking responsibility for the failures and the tragedies, whether they be on a political level or a personal one. I no longer want to hear about the scandals in which far too many of our politicians have found themselves. You know your country is in trouble when your president is being investigated for rape, your justice minister has stepped down from his post in order to defend himself against sex-related charges, and a whole slew of other politicians are in various stages of police investigation (including the prime minister). I’m sorry, but what is wrong with you people? Don’t even get me started on those politicians who were not only against the war, but actually, quite publicly, supported Hezbollah. Yeah, that’s right. They were actually supporting those who were firing rockets at their own citizens. How’s that for democracy, folks?

The saddest part of all is that once the inquiries have been completed, once all is said and done, we will probably just go on the same as before. No one will step down and nothing will change, and yet another large stack of collated papers will be shoved into an archive somewhere, collecting dust with all the other reports that have been written over the years. This is the method that seems to work best for those in charge, and I can’t imagine that they’ll be in too much of a hurry to mess with success.

And then there’s the hatred. I’m not talking about hatred between Arabs and Israelis, I’m referring to the flourishing hatred of the Jews, primarily in (but certainly not limited to) Europe. I am shocked by the levels of anti-Semitism these days. I can accept anti-Israel sentiment, and I can differentiate between anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Semitism. Of late, I have become acutely aware of a disturbing ability to blur the lines between the two, and the propensity of the former to justify the latter (or vice versa). I am shocked and dismayed by the anti-Semitic fervor that I’m seeing across the world, and am horrified by its prevalence and its sources. I am struck dumb by the words of individuals such as Jostein Gaarder, who write lengthy diatribes against the state of Israel, diatribes so deeply mired in anti-Semitic imagery that any potentially legitimate criticism of Israel is lost. I am shocked by the anti-Israel political cartoons that use religious Jews to represent Israel as the violent oppressor. Most of all, I am appalled by the feigned ignorance that I see, the misguided beliefs about Israel and its people, the ignorance at what accounts for anti-Semitism, and the inability to see the difference. I do not like to think that I am reactionary, jumping at every instance of anti-Semitism or anti-Israel expression. Unlike a number of my fellow countrymen and co-religionists, I do not believe that every criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, and indeed, much of the criticism is valid. I say to you now, though, that anti-Semitism is on the rise, and it is frightening and disgusting to observe.
I refuse to sit back and keep quiet while the world vilifies us, using its hatred of Israel as a springboard to anti-Semitism. I am tired of those who live their lives in safety and in comfort while creating some bizarre equation of moral equivalency between a sovereign state and terror organizations, and in my less sane moments, I like to imagine how your own countries would respond to the daily threats that Israel faces.

And then there are those who question Israel’s very right to exist, and for you, I simply have no words (at least no words that I am willing to use here). Get it through your thick skulls and into your puny little brains, people – Israel is not going anywhere, and the sooner you accept that fact, the sooner we will all, perhaps, be able to live in peace. Of course, to that end, there are definitely steps that Israel must take as well, otherwise there will be no moving forward. But please, for those of you who refuse to pull your heads out of your asses and accept the reality on the ground (and that certainly holds true for people on both sides of the divide), all I can say is that you are not living in the real world, and I pity you your ignorance.

Now I feel the need to mention hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of those media outlets who think twice before publishing anti-Islamic rhetoric, but consider anti-Semitic rhetoric (as long as it us under the thinly veiled guise of anti-Israel sentiment) to be an acceptable form of expression. Had Jostein Gaarder written about Islam in the same way that he wrote about Judaism, I daresay that we’d be seeing a repeat performance of what happened following the cartoon scandal. If freedom of speech is to take religious sensitivities into account (and I’m not saying that it should or shouldn’t), this must be extended to all religions, and not used in a haphazard, pick-and-choose manner. It cannot be acceptable to bash one religion and not another.

And then there is the hypocrisy that exists in our little corner of the blogosphere – and indeed, our little corner of the world. It is astounding and maddening. I am angered by those who attack Jews who dare to criticize the questionable actions of other groups of Jews, yet see nothing wrong with making blanket generalizations and assumptions about the entire world population of Muslims. How can one be acceptable when the other is not? As some of my colleagues can attest to, it is lonely to be a left-wing liberal Jewish-Israeli blogger, chastised by the Jewish-Israeli right for going too far, yet chastised by the European left for not going far enough. I am who I am, and believe what I believe, and I refuse to be cowed by those who presume to know better and do not hesitate to tell me so. Clearly, you folks have far too much time on your hands, and should seriously consider going out and finding a new hobby, preferably one that doesn’t rely on bigotry and hypocrisy.