So Melissa Barrera was fired from Scream because human death upsets her?

Seriously? They fired Melissa Barrera from Scream? And for what? Why? Because she dares to not rejoice at the deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza? An excellenet film series is being damaged and the career of a wonderful actress (and good person, clearly) is being destroyed because, apparently, you are only allowed to grieve civilian deaths from one side?

This is ridiculous. I’m a Jew, I grew up in Israel, I currently live in Israel… what did she say that is wrong? How is it possible that people have their careers ruined for literally grieving the loss of innocent human lives?

Did she praise the Hamas terrorists for murdering innocent Israeli civilians in October? Nope. Did she justify the Hamas? Nope.

So what did she say? She basically spoke of how many innocent people get killed in Gaza every day and how many lost their homes. Is she wrong? Is she lying? OK, who’s gonna debunk what she said? According to the UN, more than 1.5 million Palestinians have lost their homes.

And let me clarify, the Hamas ARE bloodthirsty terrorists. They’re as bad as ISIS! Murdering innocent Israelis? Yep. Terrorising people in Gaza if they don’t follow a certain lifestyle? Yep.

However, the Hamas are a direct result of the actions of Israel the same way as ISIS were a result of the Iraq War.

Mahmoud Abbas, the President of Palestine, is more than willing to negotiate peace and establish a two-state solution… in fact, his security services have prevented many potential terrorist attacks against Israel. And yet, for years Netanyahu has been ignoring him and sending money to his enemies, The Hamas.

Why? Because negotiating peace with Mahmoud Abbas also means getting rid of illegal Israeli settlements built in Palestine to accommodate crazy religious zealots with messianic beliefs, which means Netanyahu would lose his religious, far-right partners.

And Gaza… Gaza isn’t allowed to trade with the world. They’re not allowed to have a port despite having sea access. It dooms Gaza to poverty.

Now, back to what Melissa Barrera said. Did she support the Hamas? Nope. Did she express natural human and humane horror at seeing innocent people die every day in Gaza? Yes. Is she horrified to see hundreds of thousands of people lose their homes and get squashed in a small area of southern Gaza? Yes.

So what’s with this witch hunt? Just a guess, does someone in the production company own shares in the military-industrial complex?

It Takes Two to Tango: The October 2023 Gaza-Israel War, A Perspective of an Israel Resident

As someone who currently lives in Israel, it’s horrifying for me to see innocent humans being carried off into Gaza by Hamas terrorists. Those people are mostly civilians – young and old, men and women, children and toddlers… I mean, imagine yourself in their position. And the young, happy, lively people massacred at the Re’im music festival… I mean, how do you react to that? Young, beautiful people being slaughtered when all they wanted was to celebrate love and freedom.

And later, I was horrified when seeing the images from Gaza. The destruction, the crying faces, the screams… again, Gaza is bleeding.

I am angry, the Hamas are bloodthirsty terrorists who aim to hurt innocent people in the most sadistic ways possible – I mean, if it were really about fighting for the freedom of Palestine, they’d be fighting the IDF. But the Re’im massacre had nothing to do with fighting for the freedom of Palestine and confronting the IDF, it was about causing as much grief and horror as possible. Freedom fighters don’t target civilians, terrorists do.

But… amidst all the anger and humiliation overflowing Israel at the moment, it’s extremely easy to overlook and ignore the full picture. The truth is, the situation didn’t start on 7 October when the Hamas managed to enter Israel and slaughter innocent people, did it? One must be really, really foolish to overlook the bigger picture and Israel’s fault in this situation.

And here is the bigger picture: occupation breeds terror. You can deny it all you want, you can blame it on religion (which does play a role here, and I’ll get to it later), you can blame it on mentality, you can go full bigot and blame it on the shade of one’s skin… ignorance is bliss. But the truth is, it’s to do with the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Didn’t he Iraq War lead to the rise of ISIS? Didn’t the oppression and abuse of Catholics in Northern Ireland lead to the creation of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the horrifying terror attacks that followed? Didn’t the Spanish occupation of the Basques result in terror attacks? Did the Turkish oppression of the Kurds not result in terror attacks?

Terror creates more terror, and if we really want to stop this cycle of bloodshed, Israelis must look within themselves for the answer.

Right now, Israel is occupying Palestine. Israeli politicians, when speaking in English, say it’s about “security,” but it’s not. If it were about security, Israel wouldn’t be building illegal settlements on land that even Israel recognises as Palestinian territory. Twithhose settlements are only there for one reason: to satisfy Netanyahu’s religious political allies, AKA the guys that believe that settling “Greater Israel” is a requirement to bring forth the Messiah. Or in other words, it’s done to appease religious psychopaths.

The reality that comes to be is that Palestinians suffer dispossession, abuse, unannounced house searches, harassment at checkpoints, complete lack of freedom of movement, violence from Israeli settlers (who are protected by the IDF)… and this is a ripe ground to raise angry and bitter youths who see no other perspective in life but turn to terror.

And who does such reality strengthen within Palestine’s political reality? Of course, the radicals. Religious psychopaths like the Hamas and the Jihad whose ludicrous ideology taps perfectly into the public mood of anger.

And how does it affect Israel? The same way, with the rise of religious fanatics. Two of Netanyahu’s allies are Itamar Ben Gvir, a convicted Jewish terrorist, and Bezalel Smotrich, a man who was arrested in 2005 while in possession of 700 litres of gasoline on  the suspicion of participating in an attempt to blow up Ayalon Highway. Those are religious Jewish fanatics with a history of terrorism and a collection of racist and homophobic remarks of severity unheard of since the 1930s!

Without a two-state solution, without removing the illegal settlements from Palestinian soil, and without a peace agreement, this situation will just keep repeating itself and getting worse.

It takes two to tango, and the monster we know as the Hamas is the direct result of Israeli oppression and actions towards the Palestinians.

Someone once told me of an Arabic saying: “If you treat a man like a dog, one day he will bite.” Well, the dogs are out, on both sides.

The Jerusalem March? The Israeli “Blackshirts” and “Brownshirts”

You know the fascist marches that the “Brownshirts” and the “Blackshirts” organised in the 1920s? Well, Israeli fascists have their own yearly equivalent – it’s called the Jerusalem March.

On paper, it’s a March to celebrate the “reunification” on Jerusalem. In reality, the Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem suffer from abuse, discrimination, and don’t want to be under Israeli rule. Jerusalem is all but “united.”

The Jerusalem March is organized by neo-fascist settlers, and the main feature of the march is basically walking through Arab neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, waving the Israeli flag, and shouting racist abuse at Arabs while being protected by the Israeli “Defense” Forces. Naturally, if a fight breaks out, the only ones to remain under arrest will be Palestinian.

Now, what is the main ideology of those settlers? It is very similar to the Nazi ideology. How? First of all, they believe in creating their own Lebensraum in the form of “Greater Israel,” which means conquering the area of the mythical Biblical Israel and “purifying” it of non-Jews.

Violence against Arabs is welcomed, and among the “heroes” of those organising this march is the terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who walked into a mosque and massacred Arabs during a prayer in Hebron.  

They also oppose mixed marriage between Jews and non-Jews, oppose gay rights, and believe that Israel should be ruled by the Halakha (the Jewish equivalent of the Sharia Law, a backward set of rules that discriminates against women, gay people, secular people, and against everyone who isn’t a religious Jewish male).

Those national-religious settlers, with the help of the Israeli government, dispossess Palestinians of their lands (and when I say Palestinians, I don’t mean Arabs with Israeli citizenship who live in what is internationally recognised as Israel – I literally mean Palestinians who live in the Palestinian Autonomy, a territory that even by Israeli law isn’t a part of Israel) and create illegal settlements in Palestine (illegal even by Israeli law, on paper). Their end mission is, as I’ve already mentioned, to create a “Greater Israel” (which they believe will bring forward the arrival of the Messiah – yep, they’re that mental).

This is also a part of the apartheid regime imposed by the Israeli government against Palestinians. Israeli propaganda often likes to deny this apartheid by talking about Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship and, at least on paper, enjoy equal rights (not in reality) – it is an intentional distraction tactic to distract the world from the fact the Palestinians who live in the Palestinian Autonomy have no citizenship, have no rights, and suffer abuse and restrictions under the Israeli military rule. Israel wants to distract the world from what is happening to an Arab in Hebron and Gaza (both in Palestine) by talking about an Arab from Haifa (which still suffers discrimination, but of a different kind).

A Palestinian living under Israeli military law can’t travel abroad, can’t trade with another country without a written permission from the Israeli military (which is almost impossible to achieve), and in many cases, can’t even get to a nearby village without passing through Israeli checkpoints and undergoing humiliation by Israeli soldiers.

I know Palestine isn’t a “trendy” topic anymore, but it’s still happening.

IDF Alexandroni Brigade Veterans Finally Admit the Tantura Massacre

In 1948, 200 Palestinians were massacred by the IDF Alexandroni Brigade in the northern village Tantura. This was one of many massacres committed during the 1947–1949 Palestine War.

Why am I bringing it up? Because after years of denying it and trying to harass and silence historian Benny Morris for bringing it up, the IDF soldiers who took part in committing the massacre finally admit what happened as part of the Tantura documentary by Israeli director Alon Schwarz.

Why is it important? The stance Israel takes in regards to its crimes and towards genocide in general is a rather hypocritical one. If Germany chose to deny the Holocaust, Israel would kick off about it big time, and rightly so. However, Israel doesn’t have any issue with denying its own crimes against the Palestinian population, and up until 2016, Israel refused to recognise the Armenian genocide in order to not spoil its relationship with Turkey.

Denying its crimes against the Palestinian population certainly can’t help the dialogue between the groups. Recognising what happened is a step forward towards mutual understanding.

I’d like to explain why most Israelis insist on denying the massacres during the Israeli Independence War (as it’s referred to in Israel). Israelis fear that acknowledging these crimes will somehow deprive them of the “right” of Israel to exist.

I’d like to say one thing: no country has a “right” to exist, they just exist. It’s not a matter of whether Israel has the “right” to exist or not – it’s there, and as much as most Israelis would like to deny it, so is Palestine. Palestine exists, Palestinian identity exists, the Palestinian entity exists, and occupying it doesn’t stop it from being there – but every day of occupation, of oppression, of humiliation, creates more frustration, more sense of hopelessness, and more terror.

Terror breeds terror – the terror inflicted by the IDF and the settlers in the Palestinian territories breeds Palestinian terror in return.

I’m extremely grateful the US exists, its contribution to the world is immense in every field imaginable (and anyone denying it as a hypocrite, because we all enjoy American contribution) – and recognising the terrible things that the Native Americans endured doesn’t contradict that, it’s just being honest and seeing the full story; I’m bloody happy Britain exists, for me a world without British rock bands and comedy shows would be a crap would – and yet people in England are fully aware of how the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons effected the Celts.

Even in pre-colonial times, the Mayan, the Inca, and the Aztec empires established themselves through genocide and enslavement of other – it doesn’t mean that people who identify with these cultures support genocide and slavery.

Again, recognising the bad parts of your history doesn’t mean you regret being alive, it just means you’re honest enough to acknowledge what happened and mature enough to move forward.

Did you know Israel Has a Memorial for the fascist Rehavam Ze’evi?

In two days, Israel will commemorate the official Memorial Day for Rehavam Ze’evi. So who was this Rehavam Ze’evi guy? He was a far-right politician whose whole political platform was based around the idea of expelling the Arabs of Israel and Palestine into Jordan, and creating a Jewish Lebensraum.

Fun fact? His nickname in Israel was “Ghandi,” why? “Because he loved his people”… which is the equivalent of nicknaming Donald Trump “Martin Luther King Jr.” Honestly, you couldn’t make it up!

Another “fun fact”? A television report from 2016 alleged that he sexually harassed and raped women who were under his command in the army. But… back to the point.

The ideology of the Israeli settlers and the far right is based on two main principles, one is to drive out Palestinians from their lands by seizing their lands a Lebensraum (please note that we’re not talking about lands that are officially a part of Israel, we’re literally talking about lands within the Palestinian Autonomy), and the other one is a belief in racial supremacy that warrants violence against those standing in the way of achieving the victory of the “chosen people.”

The fact Israel actually has an official calendar day dedicated to this guy shows that there are two Israels. One is the Israel that is shown in promotional videos to people in the West with the intention of creating sympathy for Israel and to get them to open their wallets… you know, one that claims to be “the only democracy in the Middle East”… and there’s another Israel.

An apartheid Israel. As a Palestinian, you get to see your lands seized for the expansion of another settlement, you will see your son jailed for confronting soldiers, and if settlers come to kill your sheep and stone your family… the army will either beat you up for standing up for your rights, or turn a blind eye while the settlers deal with you.

I’m half Jewish, I grew up in Israel… and if there’s one thing that irritates me is the way many people in the West are misled to believe that Israel is just defending itself. How the hell is building a settlement for religious nutters on Palestinian soil “self-defence”? You really must be daft to believe that.

Sheikh Jarrah, Hebron, and how apartheid works

Written on 10 May on Facebook.

The Arabs in Jerusalem are not rioting because they feel like it. They are rioting because families who were already expelled between 1947 and 1949 are being expelled again.

The Israeli law states that Jews who lost property before and during the 1947–1949 Palestine war can claim it back… but at the same time, Arabs who lost property around the same time don’t have any right to it.

Right now, Israeli messianic far-right organisations use their power within Netanyahu’s coalition to “claim” Palestinian houses based on that law, and aim to expend their Lebensraum by planting a seed (“gar’in” in Hebrew, that’s the term they use) in Arab neighbourhoods with the expressed aim of taking over those neighbourhoods and pushing the Palestinians out.

I mean, the two most prominent figures of the Religious Zionist Party, Smotrich and Ben Gvir, were both indicted of terrorism. Smotrich, on the eve of the Israeli Holocaust Day, gave a speech saying how Arabs will basically be expelled in the future, whilst Ben Gvir has a photo of Baruch Goldstein in his house (a terrorist who massacred many Muslims in the Cave of the Patriarchs during a prayer).

Look at what’s happening in Hebron… Palestinian families are literally kept in cages, whilst Jewish settlers throw rocks and empty glass bottles at them, and the IDF intentionally looks away… until a Palestinian tries to fight back, then the IDF show their whole strength (in beating up an unarmed civilian or arresting an underage boy). I recommend everyone to check the Breaking the Silence testimonies given by former IDF soldiers serving there.

This violence is a result of Netanyahu giving the religious and the messianic far-right free reign in Israel because his coalition depends on them, which doesn’t bother him in any way, as he couldn’t care less about anything but keeping in power.

This is ridiculous how much the Israeli far right have become so drunk with power that they intentionally ignite violence, just for the sake of it, and know they will get away with it and have the law enforcers on their side.

The Promise (2011): A review of a historically accurate miniseries

There’s a show I’d really like to recommend to anyone who wants to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – it’s called The Promise, from 2011, produced by Channel 4.

This great show has a few minor flaws – for example, why is it only the Parachute Regiment that appears in the film? And why doesn’t the protagonist just read the diary she comes across till the end straight away?

However, this masterpiece does capture most things accurately.

For example, the fact that Israeli settlers get to throw rocks at the Palestinians in Hebron and the army does nothing (as is seen in episode 3), or how those who come to Hebron on Breaking the Silence tours (tours given by former IDF soldiers to make more Israelis aware of the horrors of occupation) get harassed by settlers shouting at them through loudspeakers (also seen in episode 3)… I mean, when I went on one of those Breaking the Silence trips I got to witness it all with my own eyes, it’s shocking how regularly it happens there.

What people outside of Israel often fail to understand is that the settler ideology is practically identical to a neo-Nazi ideology – belief in racial superiority, the idea of creating a Jewish Lebensraum, messianism, support of violence (most settlers see murderers such as Baruch Goldstein as heroes)… and this ideology gets funded, encouraged, and supported by the Israeli government.

But that is not the main thing I wanted to talk about. Growing up in Israel, we were exposed to a very specific narrative at school – basically, the Jews peacefully settled in Israel, when Israel was declared the Arab countries declared war, the Arabs who lived in Palestine left because their leaders told them to… and that’s it.

We weren’t taught anything about how what they call “the War of Independence” in Israel, in fact, started in 1947 as a civil war in Mandatory Palestine, and that the Arab countries didn’t invade Israel until 1948. We weren’t taught how Arab villages were erased or how the people living there were threatened and shot at in order to make them leave. The Balad al-Shaykh massacre, the Bayt Daras massacre, the Deir Yassin massacre, and the Ein al-Zeitun massacre all happened before Israel’s Declaration of Independence, before the neighbouring Arab countries declared war on Israel.

I’m not saying that either side is completely innocent. For example, we can’t ignore how the 1929 Palestine riots, the 1938 Tiberias massacre, and the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine were characterised by numerous acts of violence and murder against the Jewish population of Palestine… and we can’t ignore the terrorist organisations the Irgun and the Lechi murdering innocent Palestinians in acts of “reprisal” or “deterrence” (basically, killing Arabs just for the sake of intimidating Arabs).

But what I’m saying is this, look up the numbers, the statistics, learn the whole history. For example, the Israeli narrative involves this notions that Israelis were few whilst the Arabs were many, and hence, the Israeli victory was “miraculous” – this is statistically inaccurate.

At the start of the civil war in Palestine, the Jewish military groups encompassed about 10,000 men, whilst the Palestinian Arab army had only a few thousand soldiers (mostly untrained peasants); at the end of the war, Israel had about 117,500 soldiers, whilst the Arab armies altogether had an estimated maximum of 63,500 soldiers.

In fact, I wasn’t exposed to any of that until I got to Tel Aviv University and where I took some classes in history (despite my degree being in geography) and got to see how much the narrative we were taught at school was a lie.

Again, I’ve always said that the solution to this situation is a two-state solution carved along demographic lines. Holding on to past grudges can only make it worse, or as Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Also, if the West stopped unconditionally arming Israel, that would be great. I mean, the Israeli far-right government gets to have all the weapons it wants, continue creating and expanding illegal settlements… and getting away scotch free.

If you have a relative who has a drug addiction and demonstrates aggressive behaviours, surely giving them an unlimited access to your cash isn’t the best way of helping them, right? Same with Israel. Peace would benefit both the Israelis and the Palestinians, however, how is Israel expected to see that whilst its violent behaviour is rewarded with more subsidies and weapons?

I’ve made sure to not give any spoilers (except a small extract from episode 3) in order to not stop you from enjoying the show, so I hope you get to watch it.

The Palestinian people, the Chechen people, the people of Kosovo, the Kurds, the Copts, the Assyrians… there are many groups in the world that suffer dispossession, oppression, humiliation, and whose voices are being silenced. Don’t let your heart be numbed by propaganda to the suffering of those people.

Israel is not “the only democracy in the Middle East,” and no, Israel and Palestine don’t “fight for the same piece of land”

Mostly as a result of the pro-Israel lobby propaganda (and I will later explain why this lobby isn’t really “pro-” Israel), many people believe two myths about the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The first myth is that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East,” and the second myth is that “Israelis and Palestinians are fighting for the same piece of land,” which leads many to the false conclusion that one must prefer Israel in this conflict, because “it’s the only democracy…” and so on. As someone who lived in Israel for many years, I can tell you both of these statements are false.

First of all, Israel and Palestine are not fighting for the same piece of land. It’s not like they’re both contesting Tel Aviv, Netanya, Petah Tiqwa, and so on. There is a very clear line between the areas known as Palestine, which are the territories of the Palestinian Autonomy (or Palestinian Authority), which constitute the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the State of Israel.

In fact, the line is so “clear,” that Israel has never actually annexed the Palestinian territories, because that would require Israel to give citizenship to the Palestinian living there, and citizens get human rights, which is something the Israeli far-right government can’t have.

Saying that “Israelis and Palestinians are fighting for the same piece of land” is like letting the US conquer Canada (or vice versa), and then to say, “Well, they’re both fighting for the same piece of land, so it’s very complicated” – it really isn’t.

What happens in practice is that the Israeli army controls the West Bank, and on a daily basis, a Palestinian is required to go through checkpoints (not only to cross to Israel, but within the West Bank itself), long queues, and humiliation on a daily basis.

At the same time, part of the ruling coalition in Israel are parties promoting religious nationalism. Those parties actually believe in a schizophrenic idea that settling the whole area known as “Greater Israel” – a Biblical myth about a “promised land” which includes parts of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan – will bring the Messiah. So what does the Israeli government do, to appease those political parties? It creates illegal settlements in the West Bank, settlers of those who openly wish to dispossess Palestinians and fulfil their “Greater Israel plan.”

Think of the reality under which a Palestinian has to live. Seeing parts of your family’s lands confiscated by Israel for new settlements, getting abused by soldiers, and having your freedom of movement limited. What kind of reality is that? It breeds anger, and anger breeds irrationality, extremism, and violence. That is literally how after WWI the financial penalties against Germany led to poverty and frustration that gave popularity to such extreme and vile ideologies as Nazism and communism.

As for the “only democracy…” argument, is it though? Is it a democracy? According to Western standards, I really don’t think it is. I mean, in order to appease the fundamentalist parties in Israel, i.e. the religious nationalists and the Orthodox, gay people are not allowed to get married, a Jewish couple can’t get married outside the Rabbinate, there is no public transport on Saturday – despite popular demand – due to the Orthodox parties preventing it.

I mean, does that actually count as a democracy? For an average Westerner, hearing such things leaves them in shock, and surprise, surprise, there’s a reason the pro-Israel lobby doesn’t mention it in its donation campaigns.

Even if that “only democracy…” argument were true, does that justify a country dispossessing and depriving another nation of their human rights? I mean, surely that is a ridiculous argument.

Also, I’m not sure the so-called pro-Israel lobby actually does any good to Israel. When someone shows harmful behaviour, the last thing you should do is enable it. Oh, so you’re a drug addict? Here, take unlimited funds to buy drugs! Or oh, you have anger issues? There you go, unlimited access to guns.

The best thing you can do in such a case is take drastic actions to stop that behaviour. In my view, the best thing the West can do is actually stop financing and supplying Israel with weapons unless it negotiates peace with Palestine. As for now, Israel gets huge funds from the West, and sees no need to work towards changing the situation.

The Gaza Mincer 2014: The Hamas, Netanyahu and who needs this war

On the 8th of July 2014 Israel started a military operation in Gaza, an operation Israel called Protective Edge, launching heavy air strikes killing thousands of innocent people. Day after day the international news were reporting of another horrific number of people killed in Gaza, a number reaching more than 2,000, the vast majority of whom are innocent civilians. Over half a million Palestinians lost their homes, and over 10,000 were injured while the medical services and facilities are “on the verge of collapse” (as reported by the UN). On the Israeli side of the border any criticism against the war and Israeli military actions is being met with aggressive responses, including threats and violent attacks against anti-war protesters. In Gaza, the Hamas implemented a regime of terror against anyone criticising the organisation or its actions.

The Israeli corporate media portrayed the mission as a “self defense” mission, a “response” to Hamas shooting rockets on Israel. In reality, that war was predictable, I would even say, engineered, long before the first rocket was shot. It was engineered by the Israeli PM Netanyahu in the interests of the financial forces standing behind him. As much as the Israeli propaganda attempts to date the conflict only as far as the Hamas rocket shooting started, it is naive to look at the rocket shooting as the cause of the conflict, and it is impossible to resolve the conflict without understanding what caused those rockets to be shot.

To understand what happens between Israel and Palestine, and who maintains this conflict, it is first important to understand what is the Israeli right, and what is the Palestinian equivalent, the Hamas. The right wing, by definition, is a collaboration between the nationalists and the capitalists (and sometimes has religion as part of the nationalism). It’s an alliance, two ideologies that naturally mixed into one as both by definition oppose equality (whether it’s financial equality or racial equality). Each of them has a “resource” the other one doesn’t have, whether it’s financial resources the capitalists have or the appeal to the voters based on racial identity and ignorance, which is the “home ground” of the nationalists. To make it to power and to be able to maintain the system that benefits them, the capitalists formed a historic alliance with the nationalists. The capitalists lack any appeal to the masses and would never manage to establish themselves in a position of power in a democratic society. I mean “we are the 1% that controls 99% of your resources ” is hardly a good elections slogan. Nationalism is an ideology which attracts people through hate and fear, it’s an ideology targeting those who are not developed enough intellectually to be able to analyse society by objectively looking at it. The right wing is like a voucher is blaming all the financial ills and social problems on the minorities, those whose only “sin” is being different in terms of behaviour or looks. The right wing always needs an enemy, and they will always have someone to “mark”. They will always make sure to blame it on the immigrants, minorities, and any other group that seems vulnerable or helpless, to get the votes of the narrow minded, and to help those financially standing behind the party to continue accumulating wealth. If there is a war going on, it’s the ideal situation in terms of attracting voters based on hate, and they will do everything possible to make sure that war will continue.

Fact is, the current Israeli right-wing establishment needed this war, as this is the only thing that keeps them in power. War is the only thing which can distract the Israeli population from the major problems the Israeli society is facing today. The political system in Israel is more corrupt than it ever was. As of today, 20 families control around 50% of the total market share in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (as reported by the Bank of Israel annual report in 2010), and nearly 40% of Israeli families can’t cover monthly expenses (as reported by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 2014). As was demonstrated in The Shakshuka System documentary, which was investigating corruption in Israel using the case study of the Ofer family, the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and other politicians are attending family events and maintain close contact with those families. The public image of Netanyahu suffered even more when a big expenses scandal was exposed and the public found out that while poverty and inequality thrive in Israel, Netanyahu gets the Israeli tax payer to pay for an expensive mezuzah and expensive decorated doors in his private home. Judging by the comments on the Israeli political forums, it’s hard to imagine a prime minister who was so unpopular in the history of Israel.

The thing, however, that always helped Netanyahu to get re-elected, despite his corruption scandals and dodgy connection, is his appeal to the nationalistic emotions of the population, which unfortunately are very strong in the Israeli society. Historically, events like the holocaust and the pogroms created a narrative which the Israeli propaganda conveniently exploits: “Everyone tries to destroy us, therefore we can never do wrong because its self defence”. The result is that the average Israeli is programmed to get defensive and blame everything on the other side whenever confronted with criticism of the Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians. To demonstrate it, it’s enough to look at the comments of average Israelis to images of Palestinian toddlers crying and bleeding in pain after an Israeli bombing. Typical comments will be “The Hamas did it”, “that’s what they want to do to us”. The average Israeli will say whatever it takes to convince those around him, and most of all, himself, that everything is everyone else’s fault and responsibility. It’s not only the holocaust stereotype, however, that plays a role in the nationalistic tendencies of the Israeli population. From an early age Israeli children are being “mobilised” by the Israeli education system to the “love of Zion”. People are being brought up to believe that any criticising the state, or the establishment, is out of question, and any strong criticism is close to be classified as treason. A good example is the Breaking the Silence. Breaking the Silence is an Israeli organisation collecting testimonies from Israeli soldiers talking about violations of human rights and war crimes committed by Israel in the occupied territories. Instead of being made national heroes for exposing corruption and crimes committed by the army, the general public consensus is that the organisation are “traitors”, and top officials and politicians were criticising the organisation.

A big part of the Israeli upbringing is about learning to self-convince and justify aggressive actions towards the Palestinians, by teaching the myth that there is “no partner” for peace on the other side. According to that narrative Israel does want peace, but there is no partner to make peace with. That logic is used to justify why Israel is maintaining and expanding the settlements created for the Jewish religious nationalists on Palestinian soil. By that “explaining” the “need” to rule over the Palestinians. Building strongholds, like the castles England had built in Ireland in mediaeval times, can mean only one thing and that is “we’re staying and we’re going to rule you”. When you occupy someone else’s land and settle it with loyalists its hardly a message of peace.

In the last decade, the “no partner” claim couldn’t have been further from the truth. For the last few years Abu Mazen, the Chairman of the PLO and the President of Palestine, was literally begging Netanyahu to take part in peace talks. Abu Mazen, coming from the left-wing Fatah party and opposing the Islamist Hamas, clearly wants to go down in history as the founder of independent Palestine and the man who ended the long conflict. Despite Abu Mazen’s genuine pleads for peace, Netanyahu ignores him and continues expanding the illegal settlements, by that satisfying his nationalistic supporters, and making sure to maintain the conflict and satisfy his tycoon sponsors. Among the Palestinian population, the Israeli response portrays Abu Mazen as weak and powerless, and by that strengthening the Hamas (the same Hamas the Israeli government claims to be its biggest enemy). In 2011 confidential documents were leaked to the Al Jazeera network from the office of the main PLO negotiator, showing how close Israel and Palestine came to reaching a peace agreement under the administration of the former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert. Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs from Olmert’s administration, said after the leakage that the negotiations “did not fail and was not exhausted. It did not end, but was not allowed to ripen until an agreement was reached because of elections in Israel and this government’s choice not to continue the negotiations”. Those facts make it clear that the only thing that prevented peace from being signed is Netanyahu winning the elections, and his policy of avoiding peace at any cost.

As for the Palestinian side, don’t let anyone fool you: The Hamas is not a liberation movement. The Hamas is an extreme Islamist organisation that since taking over Gaza uses violence, torture and murder as means to oppress any potential opposition. However, the Hamas would never gain such a grip over Gaza without the direct actions of the Israeli government in the first place. Netanyahu’s choice to ignore Abu Mazen and expand the illegal settlements was exactly the “excuse” Hamas needed to start shooting rockets at Israel, and that is exactly what the right wing government in Israel needed to distract the population from the social problems and corruption in Israel. Mobilised by the old narrative “they are trying to destroy us, like the Nazis” and full of anger, the Israeli population forgot everything about corruption, growing gaps between the rich and poor, subsidies for religious sects (the Yeshivas), and billions being wasted on illegal settlements while the Israeli health system is collapsing. Netanyahu’s popularity is rising for the first time in years – just as planned. It would be naive to think Netanyahu didn’t expect the Hamas to start shooting rockets at Israel, it was obvious and that’s exactly what he wanted. When you make it clear you don’t want peace in a situation of war the other side will obviously escalate it’s actions.

For the Hamas the refusal of Netanyahu to negotiate for peace with Abu Mazen and the rival Fatah was a political blessing, as they also need a war to distract the people from the corruption they created. While the people of Gaza live in poverty and under an Israeli blockade for many years, the leadership of the Hamas managed to make themselves among the richest people in the Middle East, developing schemes to “protect” their wealth by registering their wealth in the names of their children or other family members. As shown by reports from different magazines, the fortune of the Hamas comes directly at the expense of the suffering blockaded Palestinian people. The whole of the Hamas leadership is pocketing money from the 20% tax that is being charged from the people of Gaza for the goods brought into the Gaza strip through tunnels. Professor Ahmed Karima from the Al-Azhar University in Egypt provided statistics stating that the Hamas leadership now has 1,200 millionaires among its ranks. As reported by the Rose al-Yusuf magazine in 2010, Ismail Haniyeh, the senior leader of the Hamas, bought $4 million worth of land in Rimal, best described as an oasis of luxury isolated from the poverty and suffering of the people of Gaza. The land itself was registered to one of his son in laws. That was not the end of it, and he bought a few more homes that he registered in the names of few of his other offspring’s.

Another senior Hamas member, Khaled Mashal, managed, through the Hamas, to invest money into property projects all over the Middle East, and building a personal wealth of more than two and a half billion dollars. While living in luxury, the leadership of the Hamas “pocketed” large amounts of money which should have went into the welfare of the Palestinian people, and spent the rest of the money on rockets and tunnels to hide themselves and their weapons while the Palestinian population is slaughtered under Israeli bombings. The Hamas spend millions of dollars on tunnels meant to smuggle goods from Egypt into Gaza and sell them for high prices to a starving population, and to transport rockets. However they didn’t bother building any shelters for the Gaza population. Just like the Israeli right wing Likud, in order to hide and maintain the corruption and greed which they take part in, the Hamas is trying to blind the people of Gaza by fear and distractions. The Hamas is achieving that by show trials and brutal execution of “Israeli collaborators”, by violent clashes against the Fatah, and by passing Islamic laws (religion was always a way to control the ignorant through fear). Fact is, just like the Israeli right, the Hamas wants to have people full of anger and hate, people easy to manipulate. The Hamas doesn’t want independence, that’s why, just like the Israeli right, they set unachievable goals and obscure demands. The Hamas doesn’t want Palestine independence, because in an independent Palestine they will no longer have control over the goods being smuggled into Gaza, and therefore, will not be able to continue accumulating their millions.

That is what both sides, the Israeli and the Palestinian, seem to fail to realize. The Hamas on the Palestinian side and the right-wing parties on the Israeli sides are the same force, there is a strong correlation between the strengths of one and the strengths of the other. The Hamas and Netanyahu will do everything in their power to make sure there is no peace. The smoke of the bombings is the only thing that hides their corruption and financial business ventures, which come at the expense of those people whose common sense is too clouded with fear and hate to realize. Humanity, in general, will reach the next stage of intellectual evolution only when people stop thinking in the shallow terms of “Jew against Arabs”, in terms of ethnic groups against ethnic groups, but rather in terms of class war, an exploiting class against the exploited. The fact is, even a conflict that seems to be an ethnic conflict, is still a class war, highlighting how one class can manipulate another class into fighting their battles, and believing it’s their own.

At the end of the day: Israelis, if the Hamas doesn’t want peace with Israel, that must mean that peace is good for Israel. Palestinians, if the Israeli right doesn’t want peace with Palestine, it must mean that peace is good for Palestine. I am not going to go into details about different existing peace proposals. The fact is, there were many great initiatives created. To name a few, the Geneva Initiative created in 2003 by top people in the Israeli and Palestinian political establishments, the Arab Initiative created in 2002 and promoted by the Arab League, the Israeli Peace Initiative, created in 2001 by top people in the Israeli military and security intelligence establishment. There are people on both sides willing to negotiate and make it possible, it’s up to the governments to answer for their actions why they are not a part of this process.

In his “victory” speech after the horrible massacre, the Israeli PM Benjamin Netnyahu, when asked what are his plans regarding negotiating with the Palestinians, said “we’ll wait and see”. That is a quote perfectly summarizing his whole “policy”. He will “wait”, wait for the next war to boost his rating among the ignorant brainwashed herd, creating a reality which makes both sides more extreme in their beliefs an action. Making sure peace will never come and maintain the reality which keeps his sponsors in power.

Settlements, corporatocracy, and where it all went wrong for Israel

As of today, 20 families control around 50% of the total market share in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (as reported by the Bank of Israel annual report in 2010), nearly 40% of Israeli families can’t cover monthly expenses (as reported by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 2014), Israel spends around £160,000,000 annually on illegal settlements in the West Bank (as reported by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 2011), and by 2030, religious Jews are expected to become a majority among the Israeli population (according to a study from 2012 by Evgenia Byrstov and Arnon Soffer – “Israel: Demography 2012-2030: On the Way to a Religious State”).

The Israel we see today is very different from the state Theodor Herzl, the “father of Zionism” described in his book “The Jewish State” released in 1896: “Shall we end by having a theocracy? Indeed No. Faith unites us, knowledge gives us freedom. We shall therefore prevent any theocratic tendencies from coming to the fore on the part of our priesthood. We shall keep our priests within the confines of their temples in the same way as we shall keep our professional army within the confines of their barracks. Army and priesthood shall receive honours high as their valuable functions deserve. But they must not interfere in the administration of the State which confers distinction upon them, else they will conjure up difficulties without and within.”

How did Israel diverge from its original path, and where is it heading today?

When Israel was founded, Israel was a Socialist state. Up until 1977, the biggest party was the social-democratic Mapai, which ruled in a coalition with the socialist Mapam. In its first years the country experienced many challenges, like massive immigration and lack of natural resources. Thanks to a large public sector and state ownership of many industries, the state managed to provide housing for the new immigrant, and keep relatively low levels of unemployment. All of that changed in 1977 when the right wing party Likud came to power. The reason the Likud came to power was not because they offered a program that appealed to the people, but thanks to a populist campaign targeted at the Jewish immigrants from Arab states, which were suffering discrimination and arrogant attitudes from the Israeli establishment (which resulted in the Wadi Salib riots in 1959). The Likud cynically used the Mizrahi Jews to win the elections, against the interests of those same Mizrahi Jews who voted for them. Very quickly the Likud started a policy of privatization, resulting in many state owned factories that were providing jobs to the Israeli citizens and profits to the state of Israel moved to private hands. It’s not hard to guess what happened next, when the new owners of the factories fired a lot of the staff, and later totally moved the factories abroad where they can hire cheaper staff. The regions which suffered the most in Israel were the regions far from Tel Aviv and the Centre, and those were areas mostly settled by Mizrahi Jews and Arabs. Rising unemployment, poverty, and all of the other “blessings” brought by capitalism on the working class hit those regions.

Between then and now, as always happening with “free” market, reckless competition between many groups results in the “victory” of few which become monopolies. The way the Israeli economy operates today was brilliantly demonstrated in the documentary The Shakshuka System. Based on the case study of the Ofer family (one of those 20 families that rule Israel), the film demonstrates how government officials helped the Ofer family gain ownership over profitable state assets like the Dead Sea Works, for a cheap price, in order to get jobs afterwards in the Ofer Brothers Group. In other words, huge profits which could have went to the state, through corruption “somehow” found their way into the private pockets of the Ofer family. Due to the strong influence and control the Ofer family has in various Israeli media companies, no station originally wanted to air the film, and the creator, Mickey Rosenthal, received death threats. Only after the Association for Civil Rights in Israel contacted the Israel Broadcasting Authority, Channel One agreed to air the film (but not before the Ofer family got to make a “response” film, which was aired right after The Shakshuka System).

In order to maintain that system, known as Corporatocracy, the business tycoons need to find a “partner” (or “agent”) who will distract the people from what really is going on. That partner needs to get elected, and by that prevent those who want to put an end to that system from being elected instead. The traditional partners of the business tycoons are the nationalists, and together they form the package known as the political right wing. The more animosity the general population feels towards the “enemy” (whether it’s an ethnic group, a sexual minority, people on benefits, or a country), the easier the job is for the right wing to take power. The more the right wing feeds that animosity, the easier it is to maintain power. Due to the nature of the right wing, it’s hard for them to find a candidate who will look “clean” after a short Google search. However, what the right wing learned is that they still can get elected, if they manage to convince the general population that the other candidates are “traitors”, and that the “enemy” is an inhuman monster whose nature excludes the possibility of peace and coexistence.

Israel is in the middle of one of the most discussed conflicts in the world, the Arab-Israeli conflict. The tragedy of the conflict is that the main reason it is not resolved is because both sides are led by people who seem to be stirring up old wounds with the purpose of preventing a future resolution. Both the Likud on the Israeli side and the Hamas on the Palestinian side, are organizations who thrive on the conflict, and would not stay in power in the first place if not the conflict. In Israel the high living costs and unaffordable housing resulted in the 2011 Social Justice protests, while in Palestine the power-struggles between the Hamas and Fatah resulted in a de-facto Civil War in ongoing since 2006, with the radical Hamas forcing religious laws upon everyone living in areas under their control. Both the Likud and the Hamas are using the accusations against each other as an election strategy. Considering all the problems those parties are creating, if not the war, I doubt many Israelis would vote for the Likud, and I doubt the Palestinians would elect the Hamas.

Both sides are programmed to justify their own crimes by highlighting the crimes made by the other side, typical middle-eastern blood feud. A typical Israeli excuse for the 1948 Palestinian Exodus is that “Arabs started the 1948 Arab-Israeli war”. A typical Palestinian excuse for terror attacks targeting civilian population is “there is no such thing as innocent Israelis because they all pay taxes which fund settlements and occupation”. On both sides people were mentally “trained up” to automatically see the actions of their military forces as a “necessity”, without questioning their necessity or morality. Both sides were programmed to treat the other side as “temporary”, rather than a permanent fact. It’s very common to hear an Israeli claim “Palestinians are not a real nation because they didn’t exist before 1948”, or to hear a Palestinian say “Jews shouldn’t be here because they immigrated to Palestine in the 20th century”. Instead of focusing on the reality that both sides are not planning to evaporate, and working on a rational solution based on current facts. Both sides are trapped in theoretical labyrinths which have nothing to do with resolving the current situation.

As the occupying force, Israel naturally gets most of the criticism and blame for the situation (important to note though, the crimes of the Hamas against their own population are not getting enough attention). The Israeli propaganda overcame that challenge by creating false psychological associations in people’s heads. During World War II the Jewish nation was victim to one of the most horrifying genocides in human history, the Holocaust. The Israeli propaganda very quickly realized that this tragic event can be used to get out of the Israeli population a sense of fear and readiness to fight. Using psychological associations, the Israeli propaganda managed to convince the Israeli Jews that Palestine is Nazi Germany, and what the Nazi party (in this case, the Hamas) ruling Palestine wants is a full extermination of the Jewish race (and you have to admit, when it comes to the Hamas, it really is the case). Obviously when dealing with people who want your full extermination, there is not much to negotiate, and just like with killing Nazis, as far as the typical right-wing voting Israeli is concerned, every Palestinian is a “potential terrorist who rejoices in Jewish misery”. That’s why despite organizations like Amnesty and Breaking the Silence (Israeli soldiers reporting about war crimes) providing testimonies and proof of Israel using civilians as legitimate targets and using excessive force during the Gaza War, also known as Operation Cast Lead, 91% of the Israeli population approved of the operation (according to The Institute for National Security Studies). As far as the average Israeli is concerned, the operation was a “self-defense” operation to stop the Hamas from shooting rockets at Israel, while the Palestinians are guilty for electing the Hamas in the first place. The main fallacy in that argument is the failure of the average Israeli to understand that Palestinian violence against Israel will continue as long as the occupation continues, and that Israelis would do similar acts if Israel would be occupied by Palestine for such a long period of time.

It’s not just the Israeli fault there is no peace between Israel and the Arab countries. Even though it’s not taking away from the war crime of expelling Arabs from their homes in 1948, it was a conscious decision of the neighboring Arab states to not let those people in (unlike Israel did with the Jewish refugees from Arab states). Instead they kept them in refugee camps in horrid conditions in the 1948 reality and frame of mind. As for the Israeli paranoia about the Hamas, it is largely justified. Hamas is as radical Islam as it gets, supporting violence against non-Muslims and forcing Sharia law upon Palestinian occupation. However, one of the reasons the Hamas got elected in the first place was the election of Ariel Sharon and the Likud in Israel. In the early 90s the percentage of Israelis and Palestinians supporting peace negotiations was higher than 50%. However, a terror act from the Hamas helped the right win the elections in Israel, the actions of the right wing led to the second intifada and radicalization of the Palestinian population. This strengthened the position of the Right wing in Israel, which eventually led to the election of the Hamas in Palestine. People on both sides are too easily led by radical force and rather listen to radicals on their side rather the sane voices on the other side.

The main argument we hear from the Israeli politicians is that they want peace, but “there is no partner” on the Palestinian side. This excuse is enough for many Israelis to continue supporting the Israeli presence in Palestine, while not feeling like an occupying force that oppresses someone’s right for independence. The best proof this argument is false is the Geneva Initiative, also known as the Geneva Accord, published in 2003. For over 2 years independent Israelis and Palestinians were secretly negotiating a draft for a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. Most of the people involved in the process were high profile politicians and long serving members of the establishment. On the Israeli side notable names included Yossi Beilin, former Israeli minister, and Avraham Burg, former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and a Speaker of the Knesset. On the Palestinian side notable names included Yasser Abed Rabbo, former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, and Qadura Fares, a minister in the Palestinian Authority and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council for Fatah. While on the Palestinian side the President of the Palestinian National Authority, Yasser Arafat, openly supported the initiative, the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon heavily criticized it. By implying the initiative was done “behind the back of the government and in coordination with the Palestinians”, Sharon was basically implying treason.

Another common argument used by the Israeli politicians is that “the other side will not respect the agreement”. That argument was already proven wrong with the Israel–Jordan peace treaty and the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty. Right now the President of the State of Palestine is Mahmoud Abbas from the Fatah party. From his speeches and actions it looks like he is genuinely interested in peace, more than any other politician holding a key position in the Middle East today. On many occasions he said he wants Palestine and Israel to live side by side, and the impression he creates is that he wants to be remembered as the person who brought peace between the nations and gained Palestine its independence. Unfortunately, the person who is right now heading Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu, seems to do everything to avoid negotiations and a possible peace resolution. The scariest part is that Mahmoud Abbas is right now the only obstacle on the way of the Hamas to take over the whole of Palestine. When that happens, there really will not be a partner on the Palestinian side, and Netanyahu knows that, and is working towards it. For me, Likud and the Hamas represent two wings of the same movement, the movement of populists who make political gain from conflict and bloodshed.

In order to prevent themselves embarrassment when the Palestinian side agree to negotiate, the Israeli government came up with a new way of avoiding peace-talks, while still being able to blame it on the other side. The current Prime Minister of Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu, says Israel will not negotiate unless Palestine recognizes Israel as “a Jewish state”. The catch is, no one actually knows what “a Jewish state” means, even Jews can’t agree on that. Some say a Jewish state is a state ran by the Jewish religious law, some say “a Jewish state” is a state which is the home of the Jewish people as an ethnic group rather than a religious group, while some say it’s in fact a mixture of both. It’s a term with many definitions, interpretations and different potential realizations. If Israel is a Jewish state, what does it mean about non-Jews in Israel? What does it say about their status or rights in the State of Israel? Palestine will not agree to a definition which in theory might define Arabs living in Israel as Class-B citizens or “guests” in a Jewish state. The fact is no one else in human history ever raised such a ridiculous demand. Palestine does not ask to be recognized as “a Muslim state”, Ireland didn’t ask Britain to recognize it as “a Catholic state”, and the fact is such a definition is usually an internal business of a state in the first place. Do Israelis really believe they need Palestinian permission to define the character of Israel? To avoid criticism inside Israel for such a lame excuse to avoid negotiations, Netanyahu simply said that Palestine refusing Israel’s demand to recognize it as “a Jewish state” is equal to Palestine refusing to recognize the right of Jews to exist in Israel. Never mind the fact this explanation doesn’t make sense, it was enough for the Israeli population to stand behind that obscure demand.

One of the most controversial points in the Israeli politics today is the building of illegal settlements on the lands of the Palestinian autonomy. The whole idea of an occupying force trying to colonize an occupied territory with loyalists automatically raises a concern that the occupying force is not planning to leave or try and find peace with the locals. Any rational person would ask why would Israel invest so much money in a project which does nothing but create an obstacle on the way to finding a solution? The explanation lies in the base of the traditional alliance between right-wing parties and religious parties. As already discussed earlier in the article, the right wing thrives on ethnic tensions and multi-national conflicts. It distracts the population from the worrying process of Democracy being replaced by Corporatocracy, and it allows them to gain votes by populist speeches. Building settlements is the most effective way to provoke the local population and make sure the on-going conflict will continue. The religious parties, who always supported the idea, want to take those lands for a more disturbed reason. The religious parties believe that all of the lands which used to be a part of the Kingdom of Israel were given to Israel by god and the Jews “regaining” those lands will bring the Messiah sooner. Most of the Jewish settlers are people from a religious background and believe they are doing just that. I find it hard to imagine what can be more disturbing in politics than delusional religious fanatics trying to create a policy based on fairytales written thousands of years ago. Scary as it is, that’s exactly what is happening today in Israel. If every nation will claim ownership over every piece of land which ever was in the borders of their state/kingdom/empire, we might witness the deadliest war the world had ever known. The settlements are nothing more than a conscious attempt to make it harder to reach a peaceful resolution of the conflict, and a deadly crusade by the Jewish religious nationalists to rebuild the Kingdom of Israel.

Besides the settlements, another way to keep the Israeli population in constant fear and “readiness” for war is the mandatory army service. According to the Israeli law, every Israeli citizen or permanent resident who had reached the age of 18, men or women, has to serve 3 years in the Israeli army. Arabs and Orthodox Jews are exempt from the service. Since the early school years Israeli children are being literally brainwashed about the importance of military service and how Israel’s existence depends on “everyone joining the army”. The atmosphere created around it in Israel is one which makes military service look like a mandatory messianic act, almost a call from above. The army in many ways has the status of a religion in Israel. The equivalent is people who despite all scientific proof remain Christian and deny the Evolution. Even though a scientific fact, some people are too scared to part from the narrative they were brainwashed to believe gives meaning to their lives. In reality, a big part of young Israelis simply “waste” 3 years of their lives without a real purpose in the army. In 2004 after two years of work the Sheffer committee, a state committee discussing human resources in the Israeli army, concluded that around 50% of the IDF soldiers are “unnecessary”. The committee suggested cutting down military programs which are not focused on security (programs that were in the first place started to find something to do for all the “unnecessary” man power). It would make perfect financial and moral sense to cut down the unneeded manpower, stop wasting their time, and pay higher wages to those who stay. Unfortunately, for reasons which have nothing to do with common sense, nothing of that happened. The Israeli society is militarized to such an extent that the military background of politicians is often more important for Israeli citizens than their ideas or beliefs. The result is many of the people who hold high position in the Israeli army are close friends to people who hold high positions in the Israeli establishment. Cutting down manpower means cutting down generals, and the Israeli politicians will not allow their general friends to be made redundant. Besides, military service is part of the process of creating obedient citizens. The mandatory military service in Israel is a brainwashing mechanism, a system which engineers the Israeli citizen to see himself as a soldier of the system who will obey it and protect it, rather than a rational human being who wants to find out the truth and will challenge certain acts as right or wrong. An example for that regarding military service is how the general Israeli population reacted to an organization called “Breaking the Silence”. The organization was formed by former IDF soldiers, and focuses on publishing soldier testimonies about human rights violations by the IDF at the Palestinian territories. As a society which claims its army as “moral” and operates by the principle of “purity of the arms” (soldiers maintaining humanity even when performing military duty), I would expect Breaking the Silence to become national heroes after exposing truth the Israeli government was trying to hide from its citizens. Instead of causing a wave of anti-War protests, the organization was challenged by accusation of “treason” from government officials and the majority of the general population.

In many ways, Israel is a typical case. Except for the Nordic countries, it’s hard to think of a country in the western world which didn’t turn into a Corporatocracy. In most countries a small elite owns all the resources and rules all the manpower, while using the old tactic of hate speeches against minorities or other nations in order to distract people from what’s really happening. That system is reversible, if the population suddenly realizes what is really happening and takes action to change it (as happening all over Europe with protests against austerity and government cuts). However, in Israel it seems like there is a unique challenge which will likely cause Israel irreversible damage, the rapid growth of the Ultra-Orthodox population.

A huge problem in Israel, which in my opinion is the one that more than anything puts the future of Israel at risk, is the increasing percentage of religious people in Israel and the political power they have. Even though today only 9% of the Jewish population is Ultra-Orthodox and 10% are religious (according to the 2013 Israel Central Bureau of Statistics report), politically those groups have a disproportionally large influence on the way the Israel defines itself. To understand how it works, it is important to understand the way Israeli politics are operating. In the last decades, the right wing and left wing parties got a close amount of votes, and in many cases, they needed the religious parties support in order to form a coalition. During the coalition negotiations, the religious parties “blackmail” the state for control over certain areas while getting exemption from certain duties. The result is Israel is being held hostage by an extreme minority living according to fairytales and norms from 2000 years ago. According to a poll conducted by Ynet in 2013, 73% of the Israeli population support public transport on Saturdays. However, due to religious opposition there is no public transport in Israel on Saturday. Another example of religious control which results in violation of human rights, is the fact that a marriage in Israel can be performed only under the auspices of the religious community to which a couple belongs. The result is people who want/have to marry in a non-religious ceremony can do it only outside of Israel. Due to the faults in the Israeli political system, Ultra-Orthodox Jews have an unjustified amount of power to force laws on the whole Israeli population against their will. At the same time, the Ultra-Orthodox Jews are a growing burden on the Israeli economy. The Ultra-Orthodox school system is funded by the state, however, mandatory subjects like Math and Science are not being taught there due to the opposition of the Rabbis (less education means less likely to leave the Ultra-Orthodox community). According to a research conducted by the Taub centre, 65% of the Ultra-Orthodox men aged 35-54 don’t work (only three decades ago, the number stood at 21%). According to findings published by The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics in 2012, the growth rate of the Ultra-Orthodox community is 7 children per mother (as opposed to only 3 children per mother in secular families). It’s not hard to imagine how Israel will look like when it will be completely ran by religious fanatics. It’s enough to take a look in their neighborhoods and cities. The more time passes the more extreme the Ultra-Orthodox grow, and already today on buses ran by the state for the Ultra-Orthodox community women have to sit at the back of the bus, women’s faces are blurred out in newspapers, and in in religious places like Mea Shearim or Beit Shemesh, men and women are not even allowed to walk on the same side of the street.

Another problem which most political analysts are ignoring today regarding Israel is the ecological problem. As demonstrated in the book Ten Billion by Stephan Emmott, as the world resources are going down and consumption going up, the current world population growth rate is unsustainable. As shown by Daniel Orenstein in his 2004 article “Population Growth and Environmental Impact: Ideology and Academic Discourse in Israel”, due to political reasons, the Israeli establishment seems to turn a blind eye on the fact that Israel is overpopulated. Talking about family planning in Israel is a taboo. In every school, secular or religious, in every political debate about demographics, members of the Israeli establishment are stretching out the “importance” of Jews bringing as many children as possible in order to maintain the Jewish majority of Israel. As for the Arab growth rate, it is regarding in Israel as “the demographic threat”. Due to its small size and high density rate (the 34th highest in the world according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, with 40% of the population concentrated around Tel Aviv), Israel has extremely high pollution rates, and Israel’s water demand today are higher than the available conventional water resources. In other words, in order to secure a sustainable future, Israel ought to change its approach and try and slow down the current population growth rate. As demonstrated in the documentary The Shakshuka System, the high pollution rates coming from certain factories are a cause of cancer and other illnesses among the dense Israeli population. However, due to the strong connection between the business tycoons and the Israeli political establishment, the establishment makes everything in its hands to hide those facts from the general Israeli population.

The way it’s going, there will be nothing left in Israel that reflects what was perceived in the minds of people like Theodor Herzl, a secular democratic society. In an Israel where the vast majority of people are Ultra-Orthodox, it’s not hard to guess who will win the elections, what kind of laws will be passed, and how “unwanted elements” in the society will be treated (women, secular people, sexual minorities). It also a reality which is not financially sustainable. The vast majority of the Ultra-Orthodox doesn’t work, and when the Ultra-Orthodox will become a majority, the financial system will simply collapse and Israel will become a typical third-world dark theocracy. The Israel I want to see is a secular Israel where religion and state are separated, an Israel which signs peace agreements with its neighbors (and don’t just say “there is no partner”), and an Israel where the financial system is ran for the people and not for corporations. Unfortunately, Israel will either “peacefully” turn into a dark discriminating theocracy, or will fall into a civil war between the secular and religious populations. The mind of the average Israeli is wrapped in so many layers of fear, propaganda and ignorance, it’s hard to believe someone will wake up before it’s too late. Israelis developed a defensive reaction to criticism against the Israeli policy and take it personally, especially when coming from foreigners. A typical Israeli response would be “why does everyone talk about Israel so much? What about other conflicts worldwide?” Even though it’s partly true and it doesn’t make any sense that conflicts like the Darfur Genocide, Turkish occupation of Kurdistan and Azerbaijani aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh get less attention than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, it doesn’t mean that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict gets too much attention; it just means that other conflicts get too little attention.