What the Israeli Left Could Learn from “Brexit”

Comparing the rhetoric of the Israeli left with that of British advocates for remaining in the European Union, Liel Leibovitz notes a common thread of disdain for constituents, which he connects to a shared lack of political success:

[H]ave a chat with anyone who still votes Meretz, though you may have to hurry as there are fewer and fewer of them with each electoral cycle. Catch one on a good day. . . and you will probably hear the following account of all that plagues the state of the Jews: Israelis, goes the leftist narrative, used to be reasonable and genial people. They used to believe in peace, which is why they signed the Oslo Accords and welcomed back Yasir Arafat and strove toward a permanent two-state solution. . . . Then, like a devil out of [the work of the Russian novelist Mikhail] Bulgakov, Netanyahu, a Middle East Mephistopheles, appeared on the scene and, with his dark tricks, poisoned hearts and minds, turning Israelis from a gaggle of glowing Labor-voters into a rabble of benighted boobs, always reaching for their pitchforks and always thirsty for blood. If only reason would prevail, cries the Israeli left, peace would soon return. And if it does not, disaster is almost certain.

Omitted from this story, of course, are a few inconvenient facts, including . . . unrequited Israeli concessions and . . . escalating Palestinian incitement and violence. But bring none of this up with the left, please: only fools and racists still talk about things like terrorism or religion or national pride. . . .

If you’ve listened to the [British] Remainers during these last few weeks, you’ve heard this . . . noxious form of condescension in play. . . . To make their case, the Remainers marched out a phalanx of experts, all of whom sternly warned that departure would be disastrous for this reason or that. They also dialed up the anti-Brexiter rhetoric, accusing EU opponents of being chauvinistic xenophobes and promoting the narrative that only the elderly, the unemployed, or those without formal education supported separation from the EU.

Read more at Tablet

More about: Brexit, European Union, Israel & Zionism, Israeli left, Meretz, United Kingdom

 

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society