Yair Lapid
Photo: Yoni Hamenachem
Israelis want everything
We want all our problems to be resolved without paying any price
According to all the polls, the vast majority of the public wants everything to be done – and I mean everything – in order to secure the release of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
According to the same polls, a vast majority of the very same public objects to the release of hundreds of terrorists with blood on their hands.
According to the latest poll, 57% of Israelis back peace talks with Syria. According to a poll undertaken at the same time, 70% of Israelis object to giving back either all or part of the Golan Heights.
According to all the polls, a vast majority of the public thinks and says that the time has come for a decisive military operation that would put an end to Qassam attacks on Gaza-region communities. Yet the exact same majority is unwilling to see IDF troops dying in the Strip. Those are our children, and we are unwilling to see them sent to their death on the Philadelphi Route.
These contradictory numbers are usually brought up during discussions meant to ridicule the culture of polls. Yet all these contradictions are not the fault of the polite lady who called to ask for our opinion – rather, these contradictions happen on our end.
We are the ones who want “government stability,” but on condition the current government be toppled. We are the ones who think Hizbullah should be removed from the northern border, but are unwilling to accept another war. We are the ones who want a Jewish state, but insist on annexing four million Muslims. We are the ones who express remorse over the disengagement, but thank God that we are no longer in Gaza. We are the ones who object to religious coercion, but choose to get married at the Rabbinate’s office.
In short, we are the ones who want everything, but are unwilling to compromise on anything. We refuse to realize that resources are limited, that life isn’t perfect, and that everything comes with a price tag.
Because the thing we really want has a name, and it’s short and catchy and well entrenched in our national consciousness: It’s called “The Entebbe Operation.”
We want our problems to disappear
After all, this is what we really want. To see elite soldiers hopping off airplanes, under the command of some kind of Netanyahu, and resolving all the problems that have turned us into hostages. Just like it happened in 1976, we want the miracle to emerge out of the sky wearing camouflaged uniforms and take over the deserted airport of reality.
After all, this is what we were taught – that we can win and be right at the same time; that we can be both occupiers and enlightened; that we can be both a small country surrounded by enemies and the world’s strongest army; that we can cry in Auschwitz and later order a stripper to our Warsaw hotel; that we can get a brand new F-35 from the United States, and at the same time mumble that “the Americans can’t tell us what to do.”
Our leaders, or whatever is left of that word, learned the hard way that it is not worth their while sharing life’s unpleasant realities with us. We have no energy for them. We’ll just be angry, or ignore them.
Look at, for example, the infantile and damaging discussion regarding whether to attack-or-not-to-attack Iran. Everything has been said already, aside from the bothersome truth: We simply cannot strike Iran. It is too far, and too complex, and the Iranian nuclear program is buried deep underground in a series of facilities we have no way of reaching.
You can admit that this is annoying. After all, we expected Batman and Superman to put on a uniform and arrange the world for us just the way we fantasized about it.
We don’t want to resolve problems, but rather, only to discover that they disappeared. That the abductees have returned, that the Palestinians compromised with us in exchange for a duplex in Samaria, and that Bashar Assad called and left a message asking us to come at six thirty tomorrow in order to run Syria for him and fix his washing machine.
Anyone who deals with early childhood education knows this phenomenon. In professional terms it’s referred to as “magical thinking.” Children believe that if they just want something badly enough, it will happen. Before they go to sleep they close their eyes and say to themselves “a dog, a dog, a dog, I want a dog, I wish I had a dog.” Then they fall asleep convinced that tomorrow morning a cute dog will jump into their bed and lick their face.
Only later, when they grow up a bit, they realize that it doesn’t work that way. If you want a dog, you need to nag your dad, get good grades, swear that you will take the dog for a walk every evening (lies! lies!) and treat your sister well for two whole months. It may take time, but as they grow older, children grow to understand the issue of paying a price.
Eventually, we too will understand it.
