My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel (50 page)

Some weeks later, the Supreme Court will allow Bishara to run for parliament once again. But four years later, in 2007, Bishara will flee Israel after being questioned by police on suspicion of passing information to the Shiite militia Hezbollah on strategic sites for rocket strikes during the 2006 Lebanon War. Dahla’s secular hero Bishara will go into exile and become a star on the Pan Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera, while most Israelis will regard him as a traitor. Dahla’s Islamist hero Sheikh Raed Salah will go into jail and out of jail, but he will remain the most influential subversive Palestinian leader within Israel. Right now night begins to fall and Mohammed is very tired.

But all that is in the future. He asks me to take his place at the wheel. As I drive back south in the dark while he sleeps beside me, I think about him and about myself. What are our chances, I wonder. Will we survive this horrific history?

I love Mohammed. He is smart and engaged and full of life. He is direct, warm, and devilishly talented. Had he wished to, by now he would have been a judge or a member of parliament or a mayor or one
of the leaders of Israel’s Palestinian community. He is as Israeli as any Israeli I know. He is one of the sharpest friends I have. We share a city, a state, a homeland. We hold common values and beliefs. And yet there is a terrible schism between us. What will become of us, Mohammed? I wonder in the dark. What will become of my daughter Tamara, your son Omar? What will happen to my Land, your Land?

(
photo credit 14.1
)

W
HAT WENT WRONG
?

The obvious answer is occupation, but it’s not only occupation. If today’s Israel were as clearheaded, determined, and focused as it was in its early years, it would have dealt with occupation by now. Sooner or later, common sense would have prevailed. After making some initial errors of judgment, a reasonable national leadership of a reasonable republic would have taken action. One way or another it would have ended occupation. But though occupation is wrong, futile, and malevolent, it is not the source of all evil. Something else happened to Israel that is much more far-reaching, pervasive, and complex—something most observers of Israeli affairs have surprisingly overlooked.

In less than thirty years, Israel has experienced seven different internal revolts: the settlers’ revolt, the peace revolt, the liberal-judicial revolt, the Oriental revolt, the ultra-Orthodox revolt, the hedonist-individualistic revolt, and the Palestinian Israelis’ revolt. In a sense, each and every one of these upheavals was justified: they sought justice for an oppressed minority and addressed latent but vital needs. They all brought to center stage forces that were previously willfully ignored or marginalized. But the outcome of these seven revolts was the disintegration of the Israeli republic. What was fought for during the fifty years
prior to statehood and cultivated in the first twenty-five years of statehood was very much eroded in the four decades years following the 1973 war. So while most of the upheavals were just and necessary, their cumulative effect was destructive. They did not advance Israel as a functioning liberal democracy. They did not reconfigure Israel as a strong, pluralistic federation of its different tribes. Instead, they turned the nation into a stimulating, exciting, diversified, colorful, energetic, pathetic, and amusing political circus. Rather than a mature and solid state body that could safely navigate the dangerous waters of the Middle East, it became an extravagant bazaar.

The settlers rose against political discipline and restraint. The peaceniks rose against historical and geostrategic reality. The liberals rose against the all-too-powerful state. The Orientals rose against Occidental domination. The ultra-Orthodox rose against secularism. The hedonists rose against the suffocating conformism of Zionist collectivism. The Palestinian Israelis rose against Jewish nationalism. Yet all these rebellions had one thing in common: they bucked against Ben Gurion’s state of the 1950s and 1960s that had built the housing estates and erected Dimona and stabilized the young modern Jewish state. After being conscripted and regimented and mobilized for over a generation, Israelis had had enough. The Israeli individual wanted something of his or her very own, and every Israeli tribe wanted something of its very own. Every scorned and slighted human sentiment wanted to burst out and be free to express itself. But all these different individuals and tribes and sentiments never found a way to coexist. They never worked out a new political framework that would allow Israel to represent them properly while acting as a cohesive whole. The outcome was a fascinating, vibrant society—and a booming economy—but a dysfunctional system of government, an Israeli republic that was not quite there.

Up to a point, all the revolts were necessary. They were part of a crucial process of growing up and opening up. But from a certain point on, they became petty and dangerous. And they could not be stopped, even though, by now, Israel’s problem was not Ben Gurion’s monolithic statism. By now the problem was the lack of leadership and lack of direction and lack of governability created by the revolts themselves. A nation
that was once too forceful was now too feeble. Israel had become a state in chaos and a state of chaos.

Conventional wisdom has it that 1967 was the pivotal year in Israel’s history. True and not true. Actually, there were three pivotal years: 1967, 1973, and 1977. Within one decade, Israel experienced an extraordinary victory, a distressing defeat, and a monumental political upheaval—when after nearly thirty years of Labor’s leadership, the right-wing Likud Party won the elections. The three dramatic events shook the nation to its core. They brought about occupation and then institutionalized it. But in hindsight, it seems that the most decisive of the three defining years was 1973. The trauma of the Yom Kippur War terminated the reign of Israel’s ancien régime. It promulgated a deep distrust of the state, its government, and its leadership. It empowered the individual and weakened the collective. It crushed Ben Gurion’s legacy and his concrete state.

As a result, the state was in flux. Old grievances resurfaced, old wounds were reopened. There were no longer any real shepherds or masters. No one had moral authority anymore. No one had the capacity to lead or to educate or instruct. Hierarchy broke down. The sense of purpose was gone. The common set of core values disintegrated. In the heat of revolt, the melting pot itself melted away. After being forced to be one, the different tribes of Israel began going their different ways. And it was the same with Israeli individuals. After being overorganized and overmobilized and overdisciplined for half a century, they were not willing to take orders from anyone. They trusted no one. They became unknowing anarchists.

The mass Russian immigration of 1989–1991 added to the chaos. The one million immigrants who arrived in Israel within three years invigorated its economy and shared its Jewish majority but added to the lack of cohesion. By the time they arrived in Israel, the old Zionist melting pot was no longer functioning. The well-educated newcomers felt they were superior to the ones absorbing them. Hence, they did not shed their old identity and endorse an Israeli identity as previous immigrants had done. They maintained their Russian values and their
Russian way of life and they largely lived in Russian enclaves. While contributing to Israel’s science, technology, arts, and military power, they intensified the process of turning Israeli society into a loose confederation of tribes not quite connecting to one another and not sharing one binding national code.

Israel has never had a constitution. Its electoral system and political structure have always been shaky. But now there was no governing ethos and no governing elite. No one was in control and no one was in charge. Israel became impossible to rule. What made things worse was that the old ruling elites now turned their back on the state they felt they had lost, and the new, rebelling forces never bothered to create a dedicated, meritocratic elite of their own. The outcome was a gaping vacuum at the top, with no worthy leadership, no effective civil service, a weak public sector, and a disintegrating national ethos. The new political game was the blame game: Left blamed Right and Right blamed Left. But as this vicious circle went round and round, no political force took overall responsibility for running the nation in a mature and rational manner. Israel was out of its political mind.

What enabled the charade to continue was a regional stroke of luck. The thirty-three years following the Yom Kippur War were Israel’s most peaceful. Few have noticed this because there was so much noise—Palestinian terrorism, Palestinian uprisings, a war in Lebanon, two Gulf wars. But in fact, from 1973 on, Israel was not once attacked by the military forces of a neighboring Arab nation. It was not even threatened. The impact of Dimona and Israel’s air superiority was overwhelming. But deterrence was not the only factor. Israel enjoyed the benefits of a rare period of corruption-fueled stability in the Arab world. Egypt and Jordan actually signed peace agreements with the Jewish state. Other, less conciliatory Arab nations did not want to pick a fight. The decline of the Soviet Union, the rise of America as the only superpower, and their own internal weakness convinced Arab dictators that war with Israel was not an option. Therefore, Israelis enjoyed an exceptionally long period of strategic stability, which allowed them to ignore the outside world and indulge in their fancies and follies.

Reality first struck in October 2000, after the collapse of the Camp
David talks. The wave of terrorism that rattled their cities for three years reminded Israelis where they lived and what they faced. But under the leadership of the old-time warrior Ariel Sharon, Israel rose to the challenge. After their initial surprise, the IDF and the Shin Bet waged a sophisticated and effective counteroffensive. Israeli society proved to be far more resilient than expected. By 2004, Israel managed to stop suicide terrorism. The result was euphoria, and a regained sense of security and self-assurance that led to an economic boom. The 2005 unilateral pullout from Gaza—the disengagement—was also initially perceived as a success and contributed to the general sense of safety. The generals agreed that our strategic position had never been better, and as Israel grew more and more prosperous, the nation was once again pleased with itself and intent on celebrating its dolce vita.

On July 12, 2006, reality struck once again. The Second Lebanon War was not a major war. It lasted 33 days and took the lives of 165 Israeli soldiers and civilians and some 1,300 Lebanese, but it never really endangered Israel’s existence. Though the war was nothing like the Yom Kippur War, for the first time in its history, Israel was not able to defeat an enemy. And the enemy this time was no superpower; it was not even another state. The enemy was the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia, only eight thousand men strong. Israel’s inability to stop Hezbollah from launching rockets at its northern towns was shocking. Its vulnerability and its impotence were shocking. For over a month, more than a million Israelis lived under fire. Approximately half a million Israelis fled their homes. The nation was helpless and humiliated.

Then came a moment of reckoning. The question that echoed throughout the country was what had happened to us. Had we lost it? Returning from a depressing tour in the half-deserted towns of the Galilee, I tried to answer this question in an essay I wrote for
Haaretz: