Chaos and Unity

David Suissa

http://www.jewishjournal.com/ opinion/article/chaos_and_unity_20090714/

Israel is not a great country for neat freaks. The place is all mixed up. The trivial mixes with the existential, the silliness with the deadly serious, the sacred with the irreverent.

Every impulse gets a hearing, and every hearing gets an argument. This messiness was obvious to me during my two weeks in the Holy Land. And it was captured perfectly one morning on the front page of the Jerusalem Post. Study this page and you’ll understand Israel.

On the top left was a controversy over an annual “water fight” event in Tel Aviv — yes, people frolicking with water guns — right next to a story on the looming geopolitical battle between the United States and Russia.

The Tel Aviv frolickers were battling their critics, who were outraged that anyone would think of holding a water fight in a drought-ridden country. The frolickers countered that they would use only water from a public fountain to “prove that you can have fun while conserving water.”

Just below the water drama was a story about how Israel was preparing itself for a nuclear attack. “In Face of Iranian Threat, IAF to Train Overseas,” the headline blared. The story reported that “Saudi Arabia green-lights IAF flyover” (which Israel denied), as well as Vice President Biden’s statement that the United States “won’t stop Israeli attacks on nuclear facilities” (which his boss later contradicted).

Israel has a large Russian population, so it wasn’t surprising to see a story on “Decoding Russia: A Six-Step Plan, as Obama heads to Moscow.”

Right next to the Russian story was one on Israeli and Palestinian teens collaborating on a “song of peace.”

Below the fold were three stories on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. On the left was Prime Minister Netanyahu uttering to his cabinet, for the first time, the “two states for two peoples” formula, which Washington had urged him to do. But lest you get too encouraged by that news, another story on the far right reported that “new home buyers [are] still offered incentives to move to settlements.”

And lest you get too discouraged by that news, the story in the middle reported that Israel had approved the transfer of 1,000 Kalashnikov rifles to the Palestinian security forces to help them fight terrorism.

In all those stories, there were vigorous internal debates and disagreements.

Open the paper and the mess continues: A story on a petition filed by Peace Now calling for the dismantling of the illegal outpost of Migron, right next to one on the Palestinian Prime Minister saying that “Jews would be welcome in a future Palestinian state,” right next to a controversial decision not to send ambulances into Arab villages without a police escort.

By now you’re probably thinking: “Hey, there’s nothing new here. Israeli society has always been chaotic and full of contradictions and disagreements. Those are the hallmarks of a robust democracy.”

Well, yes. That’s why it was fascinating for me to see that, in Israel today, there is one thing that almost all Israelis agree on.

It has to do with President Obama.

Over my two weeks there, I talked to all kinds of people — cab drivers, peaceniks, right-wing hawks, religious and secular Jews, artists, academics, bellboys, rabbis and more — and asked them how they felt about Obama and the “conflict with the Palestinians.”

Just about everyone I spoke with is wary of the American president. They think his obsession with a settlement freeze has overshadowed much bigger threats (like a nuclear Iran) and much bigger obstacles to peace (like a terror state in Gaza). They see him as naïve at best and abusive at worst — abusing a friendly ally to curry favor with the Arab and Muslim worlds.

What I found most fascinating was that in a country that argues about everything, I couldn’t find anyone — not even opposition parties in the Knesset — who would argue that a radical settlement freeze should be the centerpiece of the peace process.

Many Israelis I spoke with aren’t pleased that Obama has ignored previous understandings with the Sharon government that allowed for “natural growth” in the settlement blocks. Even those who are against the settlements have seen how the relentless U.S. pressure on Israel has given the Palestinians the perfect excuse to be even more intransigent, and pulled the two sides even further apart.

Above all, unlike many Jews in America who are still under the Obama spell, Israelis understand that a total settlement freeze is extreme and absurd. How do you tell a family in Efrat that they need to get special permission from the leader of the free world if they want to add a bedroom or bathroom to their house?

By focusing on freezing Jewish bedrooms while a Persian madman is focusing on nuking 6 million Jews, Obama has frozen the hearts of Israelis. A recent poll in the Jerusalem Post backed up what I saw: Only 6 percent of Israelis consider him pro-Israel.

I’m sure the president saw something “neat” in pressuring Israel for a perfect freeze. But in his zeal to bring neatness to a messy conflict, President Obama has pulled off a double miracle — he has united the Jews and made things even messier.

David Suissa, an advertising executive, is founder of OLAM magazine, Meals4Israel.com and Ads4Israel.com. He can be reached at dsuissa@olam.org .

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