1.
Two weeks have passed since the package deal. The Conscription Law, the Governance Law, and the Referendum Law were passed in one fell swoop. The Conscription Law was talked about, protested, and argued about, the Governance Law was discussed and debated, and who wasn't left with it? The Referendum Law. So this week I went to read it, and I was terrified. It was actually considered, in the division of the spoils, a gift from the coalition to the Jewish Home. Conscription is Lapid's law, governance is Lieberman's baby, and the Referendum Law is supposed to be Bennett's chopper for his voters. Tzipi Livni, by the way, who discovered too late that she was out of the festival, tried until the last minute to organize a celebration of discounts and conversion deals for the movement's voters (who are they really?), but she didn't succeed.
So let's talk for a moment about the referendum law, which in my opinion raises at least two questions. The first question is simple: The law requires a referendum in all matters concerning the transfer of territories in the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, or within the Green Line. The law does not apply in the case of the displacement of settlements in Judea and Samaria. What Israeli prime minister would return the Golan Heights when there is no one to return it to, or divide Jerusalem, or simply return Herzliya? In other words, all the places that are being discussed with the Palestinians at this moment – are not even in the story. So what, then, is the great achievement?
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2.
But let's say that the referendum law was more important and significant, meaning it would have applied to Judea and Samaria. The second question is, do we trust the people so much? And in general, who are the people, and who influences them, and what will they vote for when an order is issued? After all, the referendum will not be held in a vacuum. We live in a country where the most influential authority, more than the judicial, legislative, and executive branches, is the media. And in the event that Bibi presents 'Disengagement 2' - the referendum will only take place after, for months, in surprising unity, 'Israel Hayom' and 'Yediot Aharonot' promote such a plan together. There are things that are bigger than the controversy over the Lilian Peretz stories. Not to mention the messages that will be conveyed to the people by the leading websites and popular programs, by celebrities, senior publicists, and more.
And why am I so worried about what the people might decide after such a campaign of persuasion? Well, to answer honestly I am required to confess to two things I did this week: I watched five minutes of the reality show 'Chef Games' and I read five minutes of Dr. Anat Roth's new book.
Let's start with the more difficult task. 'Chef Games' is a popular cooking show where, well, uh... you cook. In the segment I watched, someone was crying bitterly because someone named Hamoudi was eliminated from the team. Then someone else cried about it, while in the background the judges spoke with the utmost seriousness about Hamoudi's seasoning and sautéing abilities, and all the beautiful dishes that were cooked together with him along the way were mentioned. Then Hamoudi (whose full name, I learned from the subtitles, is Ahmed Okla, a resident of a village in the Galilee) also shed a tear, and left the kitchen forever. Kat. So there is a chance for peace, and there is something that connects Jews and Arabs: stupidity. And let's be clear, the five minutes I sampled were not unusual. Every night, hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens sit in front of cooking shows of this type (and this is another genre of reality shows that is relatively nice and clean).
So you can mock and cackle, you can differentiate and fortify yourself, you can organize thousands of 'binocular' tours of Yesha's wineries and you can claim that you need to influence from within (establish a Torah core for 'master chefs'?), but this is the reality. You can also say that there are a lot of idealistic kibbutzniks, and there are pre-military preparatory schools, and there are wonderful youth who volunteer. That's all true and fine, but none of these things have 40 percent ratings. Hamoudi's crying does.
Hagai Segal once wrote that in 1993, two disasters occurred in the State of Israel: the Oslo Accords and the establishment of Channel 2. Is there a connection between them? Is there a connection between the public's drugging with cooking and trash programs, and its persuasion over the years that parts of its country must be given up?
In his wonderful book series, "A Little Bit of Light," in a chapter on the "Bashlach" parsha, the late Hanan Porat tells a story that touches on exactly this point. The section is called "Lifting Your Eyes from the Ends of Your Shoes," and it begins with the Exodus from Egypt who do not understand the power of their position, and moves on to the Israel of the here and now: "From the days of our departure from the land of Egypt until these days, when light and darkness are used in confusion, the question comes up again and again: Will we know how to recognize the magnitude of the hour? Will we know how to recognize the great hand that stands behind the gathering of the exiles and return home to a good and spacious land, or will we, God forbid, be ungrateful? I will tell you a personal experience: In the midst of the huge demonstration for the Golan Heights in 2009, I entered a cafe on the edge of Malkei Yisrael Square in Tel Aviv. The television was blaring loudly with a foreign singer's music video, and opposite it was a young celebrity moving with "devotion." I asked her what she thought about the demonstration, and she replied: I'm busy with the television. I asked: And if we withdraw from the Golan... She replied: Leave you from the Golan... I pointed out: And if we hand over the Dan Bloc to the Palestinians? She said cynically: What do I care? The main thing is that they don't take my television.".
And Hanan Porat concludes the passage thus: “This is the focus of the struggle for the hearts of the people! This struggle is not specifically directed against defined ideological groups such as ‘Peace Now.’ Its essence lies in the struggle for the hearts of the general public, who are embarrassed, discouraged, who are closing in on their doors and are not even asking for ‘Peace Now’ but rather ‘fun now.’ Will we know how to lift our eyes from the tips of our shoes, shake off the hustle and bustle of the tambourine drums on the radio and television, and see things in perspective? Will we have the strength to extricate ourselves from the mud that lies on our souls, and see the great hand of the One who stands behind our wall? And a prayer springs up and rises: Please, please, please heal her. Open the eyes of the nation to see the great hand, and open its ears to hear the footsteps of the harbinger of redemption.”.
3.
So I spent five minutes too much time on ’Chef’s Games,” and my brain still feels like a baked fish marinated in herbs on green risotto. I spent far too little time on Dr. Anat Roth’s new book, and I’m already talking about it. The book is called ‘Not at Any Price – From Gush Katif to Amona, the Story Behind the Struggle for the Land of Israel.’ It’s 631 fascinating and frustrating pages. My gut feeling as a researcher simply put it in academic terms: “The atmosphere that the media broadcast to the public was that Israeli society was on the brink of civil war. The settlers and their supporters repeatedly claimed that they were not violent people, and would in no way harm any of the security forces. But this claim was countered by their threatening description, which was formulated and shaped over three entire decades in research, non-fiction and journalistic literature, and presented the 'settlers' as a fundamentalist movement of the most militant type... In the weeks before the disengagement and even during the disengagement itself, the media was immersed in a deep sense of anxiety and flooded the public with horror scenarios that told of settlers' intentions to carry out an attack on the Temple Mount, to assassinate the prime minister and to shoot soldiers. There was talk of the real possibility of a civil war and a danger to the very existence of Israeli democracy.’.
Dr. Roth goes back in detail (and it is painful to recall) to the illusory punitive measures that the prosecution employed, and to the media's attitude that ignored the major, mainstream actions, and focused solely on the extremists on the margins. According to the research literature, she explains, there were many factors that could have provoked violence from the expelled settlers in those days: their delegitimization, the physical and verbal violence against them, the severe feelings of humiliation, humiliation, and disdain for their values and feelings, the frustration and fear of the threatening future, the adverse discrimination before the law enforcement authorities, the silencing and suppression of democratic protest that could have created a feeling of "no choice," and more.
All the headlines and scenarios, she notes, were false. All the dark prophecies about those crazy extremists ended with a ”prayer for the poor.” Within six days, with almost no violence, Gush Katif was wiped out.
4.
This book reminded me of a story from eight and a half years ago: The late Amnon Dankner, editor of Maariv, taught me something about the gap between the media and reality during the days of disengagement. He told me how he left Kfar Maimon after a whole day, and was very impressed by the civil protest there.
There is almost nothing a person loves more than hearing others express their own opinions, which is why I enjoyed agreeing with him so much. I was glad that he too saw there, among the paths of the settlement, a clear and distinct civic message, very determined but not violent.
But then the point came. Dankner left Kfar Maimon in the evening, called the editorial office to find out what the newspaper’s headline for tomorrow was, and heard from the people at the desk: “We’re going to write about the expected explosion in Kfar Maimon, they say everything there is about to catch fire.” He was there at the time and felt that the reality was completely different, but how could he argue with the senior journalists at the desk in Tel Aviv?
Dr. Roth concludes the introduction to her book as follows: ”The threatening manner in which people of the “Torah movement‘ are portrayed in literature and the media is not just a subject of academic debate, but a part of our lives. Over the past two decades, this image has regularly fed public discourse in Israel. I have every hope that this book – which exposes the gap between the image of these people and their true character and reveals that the source of the gap is a misanalysis of their worldview – will help transform public discourse into a substantive, non-confrontational discourse and will enable a sharp debate on controversial issues, with mutual respect.’.
Amen and amen. But there is no chance, dear Dr. Roth. In the next disengagement, God forbid, the media will behave exactly the same way, and in the event of a referendum, it will be much more sharp and inciting. Because then the task will be not only to provoke, but to actually convince. In one sentence: the settler will be presented as the most, but not the most, cute.
