Now, it seems the question is determining whether there is space in the public dialogue for both social concern protests and concerns about domestic security.
By AKIN AJAYIProtests illustration 521(photo credit: Courtesy)
‘The best thing about the Arab Spring is its effect on the Middle East talking heads cottage industry,” a friend of mine suggested not long ago. “Pretty much every certainty learned in graduate school is now absolutely redundant.”This particular friend is prone to hyperbole, so I didn’t pay much attention to his pronouncement at the time. But a couple of things made me think about it the other day.I was in England for the past month and did as much as was humanly possible to ignore the news from Israel – one needs a break from these things from time to time to maintain one’s sanity, I firmly believe. But bits and pieces seeped through into my consciousness. Mrs. Goy filled me in on the progress of the June 14 demonstrations when she joined us a couple of weeks into my extended vacation. And then, after the events in Eilat, it would have been rather difficult to ignore what was going on in Israel.Actually, I’m not sure about that. I knew about the attacks primarily because we have family who live in the South, who were directly affected by the subsequent rockets attacks from over the border.But as for the media in the United Kingdom, nary a peep. Okay, that’s a bit unfair. There was mention of the attacks, the fatalities, the response. But compared to past events in the ongoing deterioration of relations between Israel and its neighbors, the focus was muted, minimalist even.Perhaps my friend was right; the events of the last few months have made the task of making sense of the convoluted events in this part of the world well nigh impossible.The problem with the current escalation is that it doesn’t fit into any accepted linear narrative concerning what’s wrong with the Middle East and how it can be remedied. Everyone has his own pet theory, of course. Some say that it’s the fault of those pesky Zionist colonialists; others suggest that it all comes down to the revanchist Arab nationalists. And up until now, it wasn’t hard for one to shoehorn events – any event – into one or the other of these competing narratives. All one needed was a story with a designated bad guy; the rest comes naturally.But with recent events elsewhere recently suggesting that Israel doesn’t have a monopoly on bad behavior in the Middle East (assuming you consider Israel to be the bad guy), putting Eilat and its aftermath in context has been something of a challenge. Best to ignore it for the time being, perhaps...That said, I have a slightly different theory about the current paucity of news about Israel/Palestine in the international press. It’s often said about men that we find it pretty much impossible to do two things at the same time – take the old joke about Bush the younger for example, that he couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time. I can’t help thinking that this old chestnut captures the reasons for the dearth of information internationally about the Middle East at present.Israel/Palestine is much more complicated than most people choose to accept; if this complexity forces its way to the surface, it’s much easier to ignore it than to engage with it...In fairness, this terminal inability to multitask is not the sole province of those who make a living out of making authoritative – and usually wrong – pronouncements about what’s happening in the Middle East. Let’s go domestic for a moment and consider June 14 before and after Eilat.The thing about June 14 – and probably the reason that professional cynics and nay-sayers like me called it wrong in the first place – is that it succeeded in forging a unity of opinion by focusing on a subject that most people can identify with – that the cost of living is just too high. (I used to think that London was a terribly expensive city. It ain’t. Compared to Tel Aviv, London is a paradise for cheapos like me.) The challenge June 14 faced, however, was that of keeping people on-message all the time. Even before the murderous walkabout in Eilat, this message had began to splinter. And now, it seems the question is determining whether there is space in the public dialogue for both social concern protests and concerns about domestic security.
I suspect that one reason why June 14 so successfully captured the public mood is that it managed to sidestep the notion – one that has been energetically pushed by certain factions of the current administration – that any criticism of Israel is tantamount to treason. June 14 gave lots of people the opportunity to express displeasure with the government in a manner that didn’t – in fact or in fiction – undermine the security of the state.Now, I don’t hold with the conspiracy theories that suggest that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had been looking to pick a fight in order to deflect attention away from the social justice campaign. However, the terrorist attacks have undoubtedly created an opportunity, and thus a schism in the social justice campaign. Once again, it’s unpatriotic to criticize the government: It’s not right to try to walk and chew gum at the same time. And that’s a shame.Postscript: I’ll be talking about my experiences as the lunatic goy who actually chose to live in Israel at the Histadrut Olei Britannia on Tuesday, September 6, at 3:30 p.m. Second floor, 4 Weizmann Boulevard, Netanya. Feel free to come and say hello. And bring some gum. I’ll be sitting down, so it shouldn’t be too taxing.
