A surgeon’s warning

MK Arye Eldad is the head of the Hatikva faction within the National Union.

By LAHAV HARKOV
MK Arye Eldad 521 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
MK Arye Eldad 521
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
■ What gets you out of bed in the morning?
When I have to go to the loo!
■ What keeps you up at night?
The fact that I know that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu does not have a spine, and he can bend and break under external and internal pressure keeps me up at night. My job and that of MKs is to serve as a counter-pressure to prevent him from bending over. Every night before I go to sleep I consider whether I exerted all the pressure necessary to prevent Netanyahu from falling.
■ What's the most difficult professional moment you've faced so far?
Deciding whether or not to perform surgery on a four-year-old boy with burns on 95 percent of his body. Everyone said that if I performed the surgery, he would die on the operating table, but I knew that if he had any chance to live I must do it.
He died on the operating table.
■ How do you celebrate your achievements?
I do not celebrate. I try to achieve more.
I mark achievements by setting the next target, but I don't celebrate.
■ If you were prime minister, what's the first thing you would do?
Apply Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria.
■ Which Israeli should have a movie made about him?
More than a person, I think the Aharonson family and the [First World War] Nili underground should have a film made about them. This is one of the greatest and most fascinating stories of our nation, which was not publicized as much as it should have been.
It is an unbelievable family saga, and a historical epic that must be written. It could fill even a series of movies, how a small group of people intervened in a global process and tried to influence relations between superpowers. There are also difficult interpersonal relationships, love, tragedy, suicide and death – all the dramatic material necessary.
I once started writing about the Aharonson family, and when I retire, I plan to continue.
■ What would you change about Israelis if you could?
I would turn Israelis into a nation like every other that is 100% connected to its homeland. Today, those who say “the Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel” are considered religious, but if Greeks or Italians say the same, no one else would ask if they’re religious. Margaret Thatcher sent her ships to the Falkland Islands because no one could dare touch English land – and no one asked if she was religious.
But if I say no Arab should dare touch a millimeter of the Land of Israel, I am called a messianist or a religious fanatic.
Many Israelis are not really connected to their homeland. They think it’s real estate or a card to negotiate with, not a value in and of itself.
■ iPad, BlackBerry or pen and paper?
Pen and paper. I have a BlackBerry and I spend an hour each day cursing it.
■ If you had to write an advertisement to entice tourists to come to Israel, what would it say?
I would say “come to the land of the past to see how we build a future.”
There is no historical equivalent to the 3,500- year historical process the people of Israel underwent – expulsion, destruction – and the resurrection of Israel in its land after all this. If there are seven wonders in the world, this is the greatest of all, greater than the Dead Sea or the pyramids.
Tourists come to see buildings, nature, culture.
Here we want them to see a slice of history of the Jewish people and humanity with a perspective and a window to the future.
■ What is the most serious problem facing the country and how can it be solved?
The problem of Jewish identity. A large proportion of Jews living in the land of Israel do not have any clear idea of what their Jewish identity means. To them, in the best case, being part of the Jewish people is genetic. They don’t feel committed to the Torah, to tradition or to history. Sure, they love the country and the patriotic songs, but there is a large group whose Jewish identity is totally coincidental.
The connection between a secular Jew in Tel Aviv and a Jew in New York is very loose unless they like the same rock band. Their identity is not built around their Judaism.
If we could solve this problem with a magic wand, it would solve all of our other problems, such as foreign relations, defense, economics, welfare, Sephardi-Ashkenazi divides.
These are the same tools that allowed us to found the state, because the feeling of national unity was much stronger then.

■ In 20 years, the country will be:
Flowing with milk and honey and natural gas.