North needs actions, not talk

I heard the prime minister say 10 billion dollars will be invested in the north of the country.

Later I attended parents' night at my daughter's kindergarten at a small community located in that very same north. I was told that I need to bring a bag of clothes and a water bottle to the bomb shelter, because there's no water there. There's no bathroom there either. Actually, there's this hole, you know, like in the old days.

As to electricity, they promised to connect us. How wonderful it is that the last war took place during summer vacation. How much time is left before the next war? Is there enough time to bridge the huge gap between the government's words and its deeds? Can we even survive here as a semi-normal society with such gaps?

Ten billion dollars. It's so easy to throw around words. As it turns out, five billion of it actually refers to compensation money to be received by northern residents following bureaucratic battles that constitute a war in and of itself. That is, not an investment, but rather, a mere attempt to bring the situation back to where it was.

Another three billion, it was promised, will arrive through donations money by world Jewry.

This leaves us with a little more than two billion, which would have been earmarked for the north regardless. We're left with a headline, empty promises, and poverty-stricken citizens paying the price of this war of arrogance. Less government allowances, less assistance, less hope.

By using language that is spin-based, fraudulent, and Orwellian really, this becomes "hugging residents of the north."

Yet the north is only an allegory, only one frightening example of the huge distance between the captains and those aboard their shaken up boat. These passengers are no longer important.

They can continue to get killed, we don't need a full state inquiry to find out why. They can stand at the doors of food distribution centers and hope that there's something left for them too, and none of the captains would admit for one moment their responsibility for this.

The poor people don't interest anyone, because in the next elections they will again vote for those who make catchy, upbeat promises – but until then the leaders must survive. And if not through their deeds, then at least under the cover of words.

Is there hope left?

I remind myself with exasperation that Rosh Hashanah is supposed to symbolize new beginnings and new hopes – but how practical is the hope for government accountability and for a change in leadership patterns?

Can we expect through the power of hope alone to see politicians discover that leadership does not mean safely sitting on a comfortable chair, but rather, ongoing, uncompromising commitment to acts that are supposed to make people better?

This means better for this society as a whole: Wealthy and poor, veteran Israelis and new immigrants, those who try to curry favor with politicians and total strangers.

Are we allowed to hope, and in the name of this hope nag authorities regarding the kindergarten's bomb shelter – or must we realize that each person and his own home and dilapidated bomb shelter is the best we can get in a society that once, at different times, dreamed of being well administered?

This society is in need of repair no less than it needs compensation money, and certainly more than it needs a new road inaugurated in a fancy ceremony or leaders who pose for photo opportunities somewhere in the north or south.

This repair is needed even more than the welfare of children at bomb shelters. It's needed like air for a society whose lungs are chocked by clouds upon clouds of dust left behind by false promises and lies.

This repair, I promise myself during moments of optimism, shall come. This optimism makes me realize, during some moments, that the passengers of this shaken up boat are unwilling to remain subjugated to their captains, but rather, believe in themselves.

They also believe in their right for a better life and in their ability to replace their captains and demand that the new ones display that same accountability without which we'll get nowhere, before and after the next war.