3/30/2023 0 Comments Effie eitam![]() ![]() ![]() Not disregarded or humiliated, with rights, but external.Ī: That’s a decision for the external to make. Israeli Arabs have always been an external element. I have many arguments against this government, but the fact that Arab Israelis have become part of the country’s leadership crosses a serious line in the internal-external struggle. Arab Israelis are citizens of the state, but they are by no means an essential part of the Zionist enterprise. Are you and I the same? Are men and women the same? Arab and Jews? No way. Today it’s everything but that-a bunch of external ideas that say there’s no difference and that everyone is the same.”Ī: Of course not. It’s the benchmark, the value by which we gauge whether we’re navigating correctly or treading water. Zionism wasn’t a point in time it is the essence of the journey. Because of the inability to define their essence.Ī: Not “could”-it’s already happening. They were militarily and economically strong, but they disintegrated because of an internal loss of their way. Q: And today we are big and strong, and our existence here is unquestionable.Ī: Great empires perished while standing strong, and it was impossible to understand what brought them down. We have created a multifaceted problem here, and it has distracted us from our destination. To get there, you can and must fight the thicket, but we made that the essence: what are we going to be about our politics, and what should be done with Arab Israelis, and what the world is going to say. In the past, we were clear about the conviction of our path, because we knew where we came from and where we were going-towards a strong, very moral Jewish state that harnesses its past and present for the sake of its future. When our essence was clearer, in the first decades of the country, our enemies were deterred-not by military strength, because on that front, we were inferior in every classic military parameter, but by our substantial potency, the unity around the concept that this is our land and we will safeguard it and are willing to pay a price for it. Israel’s enemies recognize this weakness. Spending billions on technology is fine, but mostly it stems from the fear that when put to the test, Israeli society will not pass. It is evident everywhere: in the motivation to serve in the military, and even in the military’s own willingness to take risks and pay a price in human lives. This battle sweeps through us in all walks of life, and it happens because we have lost touch with the essence. If it is part of the global world, what difference does it make who cultivates it? If the land is yours in essence, you work and build on it. We no longer work we’re no longer farmers we’re no longer building. Q: Are we losing the Negev and the Galilee?Ī: Of course. Not in Judea and Samaria, but in the Negev and the Galilee. This is the struggle for our land, and we are suffering complete and utter defeat in it. Now it is also threatening us and the wonderful thing we have built here.Ī: I’ll give you an example: One of the most distinctive characteristics of the conversation on national essence is the issue of borders. It has swept across all democracies in the Western world, overrunning their national identities and erasing all essence. The national, territorial coastline the names, the languages. This tsunami that I am talking about erases all coastlines. We are in danger of assimilation within ourselves. Q: Are you saying the country is in danger?Ī: Yes. We are attending this endless party of ideas and identities-a show that is threatening our inner truth.” And what we are seeing right now is a huge, existential battle between inner and outer forces, with the latter becoming the essence. When the external takes over, you become hollow. The real, deeper debate is between what is internal and what is external. This type of discourse is nonsense, even if said nonsense was said by an ex-president. You’re either pro- Netanyahu or pro-Bennett a leftist or a rightist. “There’s talk about identity, not substance. “The discourse taking place in Israel today is superficial,” he says. The alliance weathered two election cycles, but eventually splinter into the moderate Yamina, led by Bennett, and the hawkish Religious Zionist Party, headed by Bezalel Smotrich.Įitam’s Mafdal has all but ceased to exist. As Israel entered a cycle of successive elections in 2019-2020, the latter formed an alliance with the New Right, branded “Yamina.” 2, Ayelet Shaked, left the party to form the New Right, taking much of Habayit Hayehudi’s electorate with them. It rebranded itself as “Habayit Hayehudi” in 2008, led by Bennett. The National Religious Party has had several reincarnations since his retirement. ![]()
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