Do they hate you in the Netherlands? No problem, go tour ‘Judea & Samaria’ instead
Antisemitism does exist to one degree or another, but the growing hatred towards Israel is mainly related to the malevolent atrocities in Gaza and not to the Jewish identity of its perpetrators, who are determined to break free from the shackles of law and morality.
By Yasmin Levy • Translated by Sol Salbe
Being an Israeli in the big world means carrying the burden of the crimes of Benjamin Netanyahu and his gang on your back by default. For proper countries shaken by the war in Gaza, there are no “uninvolved” Israelis, so citizens bear collective responsibility. Overseas, those who harass Israelis do not seek to distinguish between Zionist patriots who are fighting to overthrow the coalition of evil, end the war and freeing the captives, and the coalition malicious supporters who are ready to sacrifice the former for a “total victory” that does not exist.
A sane moral Israeli who wanders the world should feel shame simply for having arrived from a country that has failed for two years to remove from power the instigator of destruction and his fascist aides. But in Israeli TV the studios everyone never stops wailing about antisemitism. This is the magic word that the Pavlovian use of it is intended to remove responsibility from the guilty leader who is mulling over grandiose names for his failed military operations instead of stopping the war. Antisemitism does exist to one degree or another, but the growing hatred towards Israel is mainly related to the malevolent atrocities in Gaza and not to the Jewish identity of its perpetrators, who are determined to break free from the shackles of law and morality.
At this rate, it will not be possible to travel in Europe without a close security detail or a false identity, the kind provided under witness protection programs. The unprecedented nadir to which Israel has descended, which is becoming a hybrid between North Korea and Apartheid South Africa, was well internalised in the Kan-TV panel led by the excellent presenter and journalist Elior Levy, with the exception of commentator David Forer. “Why should one wander the world?” mused someone who looked like a senior banker living on the Brussels-London route. “There are wonderful places in the State of Israel, Judea and Samaria, that most Israeli Jews have not been to. Who has been to Shilo?” he wondered as if he were a tour guide accompanying Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, whose most exciting achievement is the opening of the Israeli embassy in Zambia.
“I want people to travel wherever they want,” replied the bewildered Levy, who had previously explained how the negative sentiment towards Israel was created when the world saw the brutal images from the war in Gaza that were not shown here. “Everyone can travel wherever they want, but this is a good opportunity for us to encourage tourist spots in Israel and not holiday abroad,” continued Forer, whose blue eyes widened and exclaimed like a foolish demagogue: “We won’t bend, we won’t give up, and we won’t surrender to anti-Semitism!”
Don’t be surprised if the local denizens are offered an all-inclusive domestic tourism package by the government: you start the morning with a trip to lop down olive trees in the hope of joining in a pogrom against Palestinian shepherds, at noon you hunt down Kaplanists [Anti-government demonstrators who congregate in Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street] and hand them over to [right-wing witch hunter] Shai Glick, and have a picnic on a non-operational railway track in the presence of Transport Minister Miri Regev. In the evening, cocktails against the backdrop of the ruins of the residential towers hit by Iranian missiles, and at night, a secret “Gates of Hell” operation led by Minister Yariv Levin to change the locks in one of the gatekeepers’ offices. Anyone who still misses the sight of an aeroplane can take a picture against the backdrop of a wallpaper of Netanyahu’s own Air Force 1 — Wing of Zion.
Translated from Hebrew by Sol Salbe, Middle East News Service
Haaretz Hebrew original:
