ISRAELI DEMOCRACY is sliding downwards. Sliding slowly, comfortably, but unmistakably.
Sliding where? Everybody knows that: towards an ultra-nationalist, racist, religious society.
Who is leading the ride?
Why, the government, of course. This group of noisy nobodies which came to power at the last elections, led by Binyamin Netanyahu.
SOMETIMES, A small incident can pierce the darkness and reveal a frightening picture.
This happened last Sunday in Beersheba, the capital of the Negev.
The picture was frightening indeed.
THE INCIDENT started as a routine attack, one of many we have become used to in recent weeks. Some call it "the Third Intifada", some speak of a "Terror Wave", some are satisfied with "Escalation".
It is a new stage in the old conflict. Its symbol is the knife-wielding lone Palestinian individual – either from East Jerusalem, the West Bank or Israel proper.
IT IS not very pleasant when serious people around the world – historians, psychiatrists, diplomats – ask themselves if my prime minister is completely sane.
But this is happening now. And not only abroad. More and more people in Israel are asking themselves the same question.
All this is the result of one event. But people are now looking at many other events - past and present – in a new light.
Until now, many strange actions and utterances by Binyamin Netanyahu have been seen as the manipulations of a clever politician, a talented demagogue who knows the soul of his constituents and supplies them with ample lies.
Poor Israel, surrounded by despised petro energy rich nations, ruled in the worst ways. Israel, if one were to evaluate the whole sum was a mistake allowed to happen, that now festers as the mistake is allowed to go on instead of being fixed for the best possible outcome for everyone but made much more difficult with each passing atrocity from any of the combatants, some more than others will have to atone, if not eventual destruction is a certain sociological outcome. Peace can lead to great things, perpetual war can only lead to an eventual toss of the dice that leads to ultimate failure.
EVERY TIME you think we have reached the limit, something else pops up and the limit moves.
One might have thought that the Hitler-Mufti story was the absolute limit of craziness. But here comes Uri Ariel, and proves one wrong. Ariel's cats top Netanyahu's mufti.
Ariel is a cabinet minister. Eh, minister for what? Almost nobody quite knew. Until now. Now it appears that he is the Minister of Agriculture.
I read that many Jewish West Bank colonials might remain as citizens in some Palestinian state, part of a Jewish minority in a Palestinian majorty state which would receive all the Palestinian refugess. With two states Jewish Israelis would have their Jewish majorty state, Israel. With one-state Jews would be a minority again, like in Czarist Russia.
There is no such thing as "international terrorism".
To declare war on "international terrorism" is nonsense. Politicians who do so are either fools or cynics, and probably both.
Terrorism is a weapon. Like cannon. We would laugh at somebody who declares war on "international artillery". A cannon belongs to an army, and serves the aims of that army. The cannon of one side fire against the cannon of the other.
Terrorism is a method of operation. It is often used by oppressed peoples, including the French Resistance to the Nazis in WW II. We would laugh at anyone who declared war on “international resistance”.
