THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE JEWISH STATE Louis Rene Beres Now that Israel has given official birth to "Palestine" via elections, disappearance of the Jewish State is all but assured. For the Arabs, whose political and geostrategic operations since Oslo assuredly have been brilliant, this disappearance is only a matter of time. For the Israelis, whose guiding government policies have centered only on various nuances of autodestruction, it is effectively a matter of indifference. Can anything be done to rescue a state that seems determined to embrace its own demolition? Or is it already too late? Israel's current leaders approach national annihilation as a healer. Let us not think too much about existing, they caution. It will only anger our "partners in peace." It will disturb the New Middle East. Others, however, have yet to surrender. Although their government has now actually spawned another enemy state--the unprecedented gestation of an altogether unique form of Jewish self-hatred-- these particular Israelis resist the soulless herd of Hebrew-speaking gentiles. Animated by more than an awe-inspiring wish to become Los Angeles (who needs Jerusalem if one can become L.A.?), these stubbornly authentic Israelis refuse to accept collective disintegration or to bring everlasting shame upon the memory of so many (so very many) martyred Jews who now sleep in the dust. But what can they do? For the moment, their efforts seem focused upon the coming elections in Israel (not to be confused with the recent elections making Yasser Arafat the President of "Palestine"). To an extent, such a focus makes perfect sense. After all, the defeat of the current government is an obvious sine qua non for national survival. Defeat of the Peres government, however necessary, may no longer be sufficient. The problem of survival lies not only in the obvious intellectual and programmatic deficiencies of the opposition parties, and in the substantially irreversible Oslo harms already inflicted upon the nation's security apparatus, but also in something much "deeper," something much more important. It lies in the heart of a nation that no longer believes in itself, that no longer believes in anything that is truly important. Indeed, all that once mattered for Israel, all that was once firm, resolute and incorruptible, has now withered, broken apart, gone to pieces. Small wonder, then, that there is no longer any air to breathe, or that asphyxiation has become the Israeli government's prevailing idea of "peace." Israel's Islamic enemies have something that Israel lacks, something altogether vital and commendable. Truly they should be admired. They believe in something important! They believe in the promise of Islam! They believe in themselves. And they understand time. Israel, however, at least as a collectivity, believes strongly in unbelief. Worshipping only cliches, and adoring only those whose promises are without foundation, it

believes largely in what is small, transient and fleeting. To be sure, it believes not at all in the meaning of Judaism. It believes in virtually anything but itself. Above all, in what is perhaps the crowning irony, Israel believes in its enemies. Israel's leaders fear Jewish rebellion, but their fear is unwarranted. It is a baseless fear for several reasons. Not only is the government's opposition dedicated entirely to peaceful and patriotic political competition, genuine rebellion against political authority could serve absolutely no pertinent security function. The political authority of the Labor government is merely epiphenomenal, a symptom of a much larger pathology. This authority is not the actual disease that afflicts Israel. The only rebellion that can save Israel today from the underlying disease is a far-reaching revolt against that national self-hatred that now cripples each Israeli Jew as a productive citizen and that has already immobilized public safety. Israel, for the most part, has entered into a Faustian bargain in which "things" are exchanged for the passive acceptance of falsehood. Whether they are confronted with extravagant claims for a new kind of regional common market or for new government policies of territorial concession, fantasy is taken for granted. For Israelis, as for their American models, truth is what is manufactured in the print media and on commercial television. These manufacturers are now the Chief Rabbis of the true state religion in Israel--the acknowledged worship of consumption and commodities. Where the throne sits on mud, only mud can sit on the throne. To create the conditions of a decent and purposeful foreign policy--one that could give the country at least a small chance to survive-- Israel will first have to transform itself. Otherwise, the so-called Jewish State will be left bloodless, a skeleton, dead also with that rusty death of machinery, more hideous than even the death of an individual person. There is so little time left for understanding. Amidst the eternal babble of politics, Israel can endure as a nation only where Israelis first learn to take themselves seriously. As long as it remains captivated by the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of mass society, Israel will pluck its prime ministers from the flies of the political marketplace and reveal impatience with any one who dares speak the truth. Let us be frank! Israelis now inhabit a tiny land of enormous spiritual emptiness and intellectual mediocrity--a disappearing land of surface glitter, smug comforts, sham conventionality and wholly irrational optimism. It is a nation where the final arbiters of personal meaning are located in Dizengoff Center and where a great number of citizens have traded a Jewish soul for presumed opportunity in the interrelated worlds of quick pleasure and expanding commerce. In this barren land of Israel, all vital rapport with genuine meaning has been lost. Here, in the land of Jewish learning, real wisdom is not only rejected; it is despised. You may say, however, that Israel is a happy society. Listen, after all, to the laughter and the (Continued on p.11)

Outpost               - 10 -               February 1996