Israel at 75: Still one big crazy family
There is reason for hope in these chaotic times for Israel.
I kind of disappeared from the Internet a month ago. Readers of this Substack know I’ve been on maternity leave, but doing some writing here when the mood strikes me. When the news got really crazy (more or less when Netanyahu fired Gallant and the country came to a standstill), I decided that if I’m on leave, I should really take leave, as opposed to doing stressful things like obsessively reading twitter and the news. With Yom Haatzmaut approaching, however, I decided to take a break from my break.
This week is my favorite week of the year in Israel. There is usually such a feeling of camaraderie and shared purpose. The fact that practically the entire country, even those lucky enough not to have relatives killed in action, takes part in ceremonies, whether by attending in person or by watching them on TV, shows that, whatever the statistics say, the IDF is still “the army of the people.” Standing among tens of thousands of people in the center of Tel Aviv at the city’s central ceremony (hosted by Yair Lapid at the time) in my first years in Israel moved me to tears; watching the cars stop at the busiest intersections in the country when the siren goes off for two minutes of silence amazes me year after year.
Then there is that beautiful moment when the country goes from the solemnity of Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, to the pure joy of Yom Haatzmaut, Independence Day, and one can’t help but appreciate and celebrate why we’re here and why we fight for this country.
Recently, a friend of mine has been posting photos on Instagram of Israeli flags in the wild, so to speak, and claiming that they are part of the protests against the government. The captions are along the lines of “even the train station has joined the resistance!” I think he’s joking, but I’m not entirely sure, so I sent him a private message: “Is the Jerusalem Day Flag March also part of the protest movement?” His response was: “That would mean the Messiah is coming.”
The point of my message, if it wasn’t clear, was that the Israeli flag does not belong to just one side. I would hope that is clear to everyone, but I know that is not the case. Yet, even the fact that each side claims the blue-and-white Magen David flag for itself can give us hope.
There’s a lot of anger in Israel lately. Usually, one can describe Israel as a family where people shout at each other about politics a lot, but ultimately love each other and have each other’s backs. Yom Haatzmaut and Yom Hazikaron usually highlights the feeling that we are one big family. But in the past few months, lines have been crossed that call that into question, with ostensibly mainstream figures calling to shirk reserve duty and to intentionally tank the economy. (Politicians trying to pass radical changes with narrow majorities - or with no majority at all - is not a new phenomenon in Israel, unfortunately.)
Tonight and tomorrow, another line is expected to be crossed on Yom Hazikaron. Cemeteries across the country, the final resting places of fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, are set to become protest sites. Any cabinet minister - especially those who did not serve in the army - who dares show his face and represent the government in offering his or her condolences is set to be shouted down.
Protesting politicians on Yom Hazikaron is not unprecedented; people opposing then-prime minister Naftali Bennett from the Right interrupted his speech last year. At the time, it seemed a taboo had been broken in the ugliest way. Now, it seems that the political side that set that precedent is going to get a taste of its own medicine and then some.
To their credit, Opposition leader Yair Lapid and MK Benny Gantz released a joint statement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that this is not the appropriate time to protest. However, the leading activists organizing the protests are more radical than Gantz or Lapid, who only joined in weeks after the demonstrations began. Those activists don’t want any compromise and they clearly don’t see redlines.
Still, I’m optimistic. I’ve already made it very clear that I don’t think judicial reform is the end of the world or even Israeli democracy, but my optimism isn’t about the policy issue per se.1
I think that the sense that we are all in this together, as one big crazy family, is still there.
It’s there in the fact that Israel is the fourth-happiest country in the world. Yes, we’re going through a rough patch, and it’s depressing - but life here is very good and it has only gotten better in the 21st century. People do not want to destroy that, even if there are a few loud voices calling to burn it all down.
It’s there in the polls. I don’t endorse any candidate and this is not a message of support for or opposition to anyone. However, the fact that Gantz is surging in the polls shows people’s hunger for compromise. Lapid has been the angry face of politicians in the protests, while Gantz has spoken in a more conciliatory manner. Lapid refused to sit in a coalition with Netanyahu after 2015; Gantz gave Netanyahu an ill-fated chance. One can argue whether Gantz can or will or should really compromise. But he has the image of a peacemaker and apparently that is what a plurality of Israelis want right now.
It’s there in the Israeli flags that everyone waves at the protests. That has not necessarily been the case in other demonstrations. Yes, there are those threatening to leave, and there may be people on the political extremes who view the flags as a cynical ploy to bring moderates on board. Overall, though, message the flags send is that these people want what they think is good for the country, and they care passionately about Israel. The majority that voted for this government may strongly disagree with the protesters about what the good of the country means, but loving Israel and having a stake in its future is a good place to start.
Because the emotional, anarchic, disruptive, frustrating debate Israel is having is not just about this one set of laws about the judiciary.
I have long thought that one of the biggest divisions in this country is between people who view Israel as the Jewish State, that must have something fundamentally Jewish about it, and those who view Israel as the Jewish State, that is meant to be a state like all others but with a Jewish majority. I came to this thought 20 years ago, reading The New York Times on the bus to my high school (I was super cool) and coming across this line, in an interview with Lapid’s father, then-justice minister Tommy Lapid:
Asked what an Israel shaped by Shinui would look like, Mr. Lapid smiled and said, ''That's very easy: Holland.''
That sentence was so jarring to me that I remember the article decades later and was able to find it very quickly. The elder Lapid’s view was utterly incomprehensible to me. The Netherlands is a nice place, but it was not where I aspired to make a life. It didn’t seem any better or worse than New Jersey (maybe because I wasn’t paying for my own health insurance). My dream was to live in the Jewish State because Israel meant something to me, as a Jewish person.
Living in Israel for 18 years now, I know that the issue is not so black and white. Someone can value democracy over Jewishness and still understand that Judaism and Jewish history are what make this place special.
The proper balance between these sides will never be resolved in a way that satisfies everyone. The Right attempted to resolve it with Basic Law: Nation State of the Jewish People, to little effect in the courts, and is trying to resolve it now through judicial reform. The Left, which has not had a legislative majority in a very long time, has tried to go through civil society and the courts. The haredim, who diverge from the non-haredi Right on this issue, have had their say by rapidly, massively increasing the number of full-time yeshiva students who don’t serve in the IDF and insisting on control over the government-funded rabbinate. The sides have been on a collision course for decades.
This reckoning with who and what Israel is had to happen, and it’s happening now. It may be too much to ask for - much like my hope for a constitution - but this chaos we’re experiencing could be an opportunity. This debate that has been escalating in tone over decades, perhaps over 75 years, could and should, reach some kind of middle ground that most of us can live with again. We can be a boisterous and argumentative, but still happy, family again.
Happy 75th Yom Haatzmaut!
Bonus round:
One of the most moving parts of Yom Hazikaron is the music inspired by fallen soldiers. You hear this all day throughout the country. Here’s a playlist I put together for Yom Hazikaron:
And if you’re looking for some upbeat Israeli music for your Yom Haatzmaut barbecue, here is my playlist:
I’m starting to suspect that the whole judicial reform controversy is going to end up as another instance of the phenomenon by which “you vote Right and you get Left,” as a former Netanyahu speechwriter once put it. More on that in this article I wrote in 2017: https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/40-years-to-the-revolution-492211