A few more dead, more rocket alerts, a pinch of existential fear — and the matter is over. Scout’s honour
Still not feeling safe? Okay, here’s another proposal that will restore Israeli national pride….
By Neta Ahituv • Translated by Sol Salbe
A sense of security
Four young people were killed last night at a military base near Binyamina when a drone hit. Four days earlier, an Israeli couple died in Kiryat Shmona. A few days earlier, seven people were stabbed in four different places in Hadera. A few days earlier, a woman was killed and nine were wounded by gunfire in Beersheba. Earlier this month, seven people were murdered by gunfire in Jaffa. In general, in the past month many people have been killed, injured, traumatised and had their lives disrupted in many places in many different ways in Israel.
One would expect the Israeli government to ask us whether anyone has felt safer since the Almighty IDF, led by Mr Security himself, Benjamin Netanyahu, assassinated Hassan Nasrallah. You don’t feel safer? Are you sure you don’t? Oh, so confidence must have risen since his replacement, Hashim Safi al-Din, underwent a similar assassination attempt. You still don’t? Okay, so for sure you feel safer since the ground invasion of southern Lebanon began. It’s true that eight soldiers have been killed so far, and the whole world is angry at us because we hit UN soldiers, accidentally, of course, but maybe some of the sense of security that the country has lost has returned? Oh, security was also lost because of the attacks, you say? Okay, so here we are also killing all sorts of people in the West Bank, in fact we destroyed parts of Jenin just like we did in Gaza, and all just to restore to you, our so dear citizens of Israel, a sense of security.
Still not feeling safe? Okay, okay, so we have another tremendous proposal, crazy in a good way, an amazing, stunning one, that will restore national pride: we will attack Iran. Yes, yes, right on Iranian soil, we’ll take down some oil industry or even a nuclear facility there, assassinate someone, something good. You’ll be proud of us after that, scout’s honour. Just hang on with us and you’ll see how total victory is reached. Just a few more dead among you (sorry, what kind of question is that! we don’t know how many will be killed, where and when, come on), just a few more wounded, just a tiny amount of rocket alerts, just a pinch more of this existential fear you’ve been feeling for a year and the matter is over, we promise.
Trust us, you can always trust us, we never lie, we never think about ourselves, well not only about ourselves. Most importantly, don’t listen to these commentators from Haaretz, such as Amos Harel, who wrote this morning that “all this serves, of course, the prime minister’s vision of endless war.” What nonsense. You know what? If you don’t trust us, then you certainly trust the police commissioner, right? After all, he is a stately figure, appointed to the position in a completely professional manner. So he asserted last week, after the attack in Hadera, that all this death you are experiencing is merely a “decree of fate.” Even he contends that it’s not our fault, it’s fate. By the way, the same is true of the abductees. It’s fate that doesn’t bring them back, we would be happy if they did, but that’s what fate decreed. But don’t worry, soon, after this super-duper operation that we are preparing for you in Iran, total victory will come. Am Israel Chai — The people of Israel live! What did you ask? Um, yes, we guess you can add “by the sword”.
