With Iran Deal, Israel Turns a Day of Celebration
Into a Day of Mourning
The people have been brainwashed by so much intimidating propaganda
that any agreement achieved by diplomatic efforts is seen as
illegitimate.
By Gideon Levy
July 16, 2015 "Information
Clearing House"
-
"Haaretz"
- An intelligent Israel, one not brainwashed and angst-ridden, would
be happy this week. The day the agreement was reached with Iran
should have been a holiday celebrating the prevention of the next
war, the worst of them all. When a country claims to face a threat
to its survival, what should make it happier than a chance to
prevent war?
But it turns out that in Israel the very chance to prevent war is a
disaster — another Holocaust. An apocalypse has been averted,
certainly delayed by a decade, and Israel has declared a state of
emergency. Help, there’s no attack on Iran! Our clever plans are
doomed to the wastepaper basket.
How Israel craved to see the planes taking off at dawn and bombing,
bombing, bombing, as they’ve practiced for years. How Benjamin
Netanyahu and his media mouthpieces lusted to see that — preferably
American bombers, but Israeli ones would be okay too.
What an exhilarating bombing that would have been. What a reception
we would have given our boys on their return from the daring
operation over Bushehr. And what a terrible disaster could have
ensued. But in Israel, the averting of all this is a catastrophe.
The collaborators Isaac Herzog and Yair Lapid have already been
mobilized. The Israeli response to the nuclear agreement with Iran
reveals the inner workings of the Israeli soul. Israel has been
corrupted so badly over the years, the people brainwashed by so much
intimidating propaganda that any agreement achieved by nonviolent
diplomatic efforts is seen as illegitimate.
We have been trained so well to think everything should be done by
force, only force, that we’ve forgotten there are other ways to do
things. But these ways are no longer in the Israeli vocabulary.
That’s what happens when a country lives by the sword and is
convinced there is no other way to do things. That’s what happens
when any danger, real or imagined, is immediately met with violence.
A brigade commander who shoots to death a stone thrower and an
Israel eager to bomb Iran speak exactly the same language. When this
language is the only one spoken here and Israel refuses to hear
about other languages — not to mention try to learn them — Israel
has a problem. Maybe this is the threat to its survival — no country
in history has lasted long living only by the sword.
Israel has plunged into disaster jitters not over the details of the
Iran deal, which few have read. It’s acting this way because of the
very achievement of a deal. Any agreement, even one stipulating
Iran’s surrender, would have met with a similar Israeli response.
Try to maintain that bombing wouldn’t have gained the 10 to 15 years
like the agreement has. Try to argue that Iran’s return to the
family of nations and its economic growth are much better than
pushing it to the wall and isolating it.
These opinions are seen in Israel as delusional. After all, everyone
here is an expert who knows that Iran — unlike Israel by the way —
flouts international resolutions and does not adhere to agreements.
The name of our game is always “suspect that everyone is guilty
until proven innocent.” When we have nothing but endless suspicions
— the whole world is plotting our destruction and has nothing else
to deal with — then we’re dealing with paranoia, at an advanced and
alarming stage. Ask any Israeli backpacker who returns from the end
of the world. You can bet he’s seen anti-Semitism.
Things are especially serious when the response becomes a chorus
that leaves no room for other voices. Whether it’s against Iran or
against Gaza, it’s a song that never ends — let’s bomb them.
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