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Photo: Motti Kimchi
Left-wing protest against gas deal. Impotent silence over critical national and moral issues
Photo: Motti Kimchi
Sever Plocker

Why 2015 was a bad year for Israel

Op-ed: This past year, Israel reached a high in technological strength and a low in global sympathy. The conflict with the Palestinians worsened, and the boycott movement spread to the heart of the US higher education system. Even the economy, our bright side, took a step back.

As Israel enters the year 2016, it is carrying on its back the same sack of fundamental problems it carried when it entered 2015. But the sack is much heavier, and the problems are more burdensome. Here's a short list:

 

 

  • The conflict with the Palestinians has worsened, and the connections with their leadership have almost entirely burned. There is no shadow of an agreement, partial or partial-partial, in the horizon. The idea of an agreement has even stopped presenting a cognitive challenge to the two people's leaderships. The stabbing attacks have become a routine. So has the "neutralization" (the key word of 2015) of terrorists and alleged terrorists. Palestinian radicalization has ran into Jewish radicalization, and they have both broken into the dance of death.

 

Palestinian radicalization has ran into Jewish radicalization, and they have both broken into the dance of death (Photo: Police spokesperson)
Palestinian radicalization has ran into Jewish radicalization, and they have both broken into the dance of death (Photo: Police spokesperson)
 

  • The social networks have broken through the gates of hell with fanaticism, violence, foolishness, xenophobia and pure demagogy. Never before have so many people written such foolish things and such dangerous poisonous words in such mass media. To be continued.

 

  • The Muslim world has deteriorated to jihad and all-out wars. The brutality and chaos have caused even the Arab regimes which demonstrated signs of accepting moral values to go back decades, if not centuries. And blood is flowing abundantly, without any restraint.

 

  • The Israeli thinking has shut itself up. In a supreme effort to bury their heads in the sand and escape from the important to the marginal, from the fatal to the ridiculous, politicians, commentators and activists have been occupying themselves with featherweight issues.

 

  • The Zionist Left has wrapped the gad deal around its neck and sank into the depth of populism along with it. Its impotent silence over critical national and moral issues has stood out versus its endless and hypnotized logorrhea about the gas. Never have so many leftists in Israel delivered such poetic speeches about such hollow issues. One day, they will receive a large bouquet of flowers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a show of gratitude for deciding in 2015 not to bother him with the things which he, they and we should have been bothered with. Or is the natural gas commotion nothing but a sophisticated conspiracy aimed at neutralizing - there's that word again - the Left? It’s possible.

 

Leading intellectuals have failed to come out against the anti-Israel boycott movement, holding their peace (Photo: Reuters)     (Photo: Reuters)
Leading intellectuals have failed to come out against the anti-Israel boycott movement, holding their peace (Photo: Reuters)

 

  • The Israeli Right has conformed to the right, marching independently towards the suicidal messianic horizon. Ariel Sharon's historic move - to establish a centrist moderate national right-wing bloc - has been forgotten and erased. Ragtag politics has taken over the right-wing arena. The process of its detachment from the values characterizing the sane right-wing centers in republican and conservative parties in the West has been accelerated. President Reuven Rivlin has been slandered, Menachem Begin's tradition has been blatantly crushed. The expressing "being a rightist" took on one meaning during this year's election campaign: "Hating Arabs." And that's all. No ideology.

 

  • The year 2015 was also the year in which Israel lost to Iran. Iran of the ayatollah regime has become the West and the East's likable ally, while Israel has become unlikable. Iran is the wanted friend, we are the forced friend. If Iran eventually does not become a nuclear power, it will happen because it is not interested in becoming one, not because the world powers - led by America - forced it to give up. It will insist.

 

  • The boycott movement against Zionism and the Jewish state has spread to the very heart of the higher education system in the United States - and the opponents' voice is not being heard. Leading intellectuals have not come out against it, holding their peace. In 2015, Israel reached a high in technological strength and one of the lows of global sympathy. The power of the mind failed to compensate for the weakness of the spirit. Even the economy, which is Israel's bright and strong side, took a step back this year. The economy did not grow, exports dropped, investors fled, and screaming consumerism became the trademark of the new Israeli. We will not get very far this way.

 

Even an optimist like myself must admit that 2015 was a bad year for Israel. We cannot afford such years.

 


פרסום ראשון: 12.16.15, 11:50
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