As I read the article, certain points--which I have bolded for emphasis--cause me to make connections with George Bush, our last President. This is not to say that there are not significant differences between Bush and Bibi--there are. But the hate that is exhibited towards both of them (will BDS soon designate Bibi Derangement Syndrome?) and the possible reasons for it bear a certain similarity. And if Netanyahu indeed becomes Prime Minister, like Bush he will likely face resentment for taking a position contrary to the popular vote. The article is below--so as not to break the flow, I included my comments in the article, on those sections that I bolded.
I walked up the street to buy a few things I needed for Shabbat, and on the wall near the delicatessen it said "Down with Bibi the detestable murderer." Then I opened my afternoon paper and there, on the news page, where they put the facts, it said that Bibi has no God. That everyone knows that Bibi has no God. So I scanned the inside pages, with the oversize advertisements taken out by my camp - the camp of the Sons of Light. The ads said the prime minister was traitorous, that he was not a human being. Then I looked up from the newspaper and glanced at the wall across the street where people post announcements. I saw a dozen beautifully designed posters, from my camp, the peace camp. "We will not forget and we will not forgive", said the posters. "We will not forget (the murder victim) and we will not forgive (the murderer)," said my camp, the peace camp.
I asked myself what was going on here. What exactly had led to this lynch atmosphere? Why do our editorial pages read like an endless string of summary verdicts? Why do our feature pages seem like a series of firing squads all aimed in one direction? What is it that ushered in the wild, impassioned, "kill the beast" atmosphere of bloodletting that is so prevalent in our streets and among our friends? How is it that upstanding citizens, who normally exhibit a good, healthy dose of skepticism, have mutated and now bare their teeth with violently totalitarian self- ssurance? And how did it come to pass that decent, humane people are willingly taking part in the process of demonization, unabashedly fanning the flames of hatred for Benjamin Netanyahu?
Only then did I begin to understood that there were two distinct phenomena here. One is Netanyahu himself, and the other is hatred of Netanyahu, a crusade that is gradually taking center stage in our lives. I decided to ask myself the simplest question of all: Why is it that we hate Benjamin Netanyahu so much?
Is it because our security situation has reached unprecedented lows during his tenure? Is it because over 200 people have been killed in our streets and our buses and our shopping centers?
Oops, wrong government. All this happened while Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres were in charge. At the time, we just kept quiet. We didn't think it was so terrible. We, who now hate Netanyahu so much, never even considered the idea of hating Rabin and Peres because of their responsibility for the bloodshed.
So do we hate Benjamin Netanyahu because he is a brutal prime minister who used massive military force to achieve strategic objectives, forcing hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes? Do we hate Netanyahu because he bears ministerial responsibility for the warfare that caused the deaths of dozens of innocent victims?
Oops again. It was Yitzhak Rabin who used massive force during Operation Accountability to achieve strategic objectives, forcing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians from their homes. And it is Shimon Peres who bears direct ministerial responsibility for the policies that led to the mass killings of innocent victims during Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon in 1996. At the time, we simply kept quiet. We didn't think the brutality was so horrendous. We, who now hate Netanyahu so much, never considered hating Rabin and Peres for their responsibility for the brutality.
So do we hate Benjamin Netanyahu because during his administration the social gaps in Israel grew to unprecedented heights, and human rights legislation came to a halt, and residents of the territories were subjected to a cruel closure policy, and hundreds were deported without trial in the middle of the night?
Oops. That happened in the last government too. Yet we remained silent. We did not think that the injustices were so intolerable. We, who now hate Netanyahu so much, never considered hating Rabin and Peres for their responsibility for these acts of injustice.
So, do we hate Benjamin Netanyahu because his government hastily and recklessly adopted irreversible historic decisions with blatant disregard for proper procedure, not bothering to take account of the feelings of half the country, only bothering to receive Knesset approval after the fact?
Oops. That would be the Rabin and Peres governments. As for ourselves, we simply remained silent. We did not feel that proper procedure and fair democratic rules and proper public debate were so important. We, who hate Netanyahu so much because he is forcing his worldview upon us, did not even consider hating Rabin and Peres for the patronizing manner in which they pushed through such a fateful historic decision, forcing their worldview upon the entire Israeli public.
So the question remains. Why do we hate Benjamin Netanyahu so much? After all, as of December 25, 1997, Benjamin Netanyahu has not made a single move that might be interpreted as improper use of force. Benjamin Netanyahu has not taken a single action that might be considered a war crime. Benjamin Netanyahu bears responsibility for less bloodshed and less harm to human rights than the two patrons of peace who occupied the prime minister's chair before him. So why do we hate him so much?
[The story which we like to tell ourselves is that we hate Binyamin Netanyahu because of the very dramatic evidence which has amassed against him: Liberman, Bar-On, the Tunnel, Mash'al, the-Left-has-forgotten-what-it-is-to-be-Jewish and being two-faced at the Likud convention. But if we stop for a moment, if we are honest with ourselves for a moment, we will be forced to admit that this story, which we are trying to tell ourselves, doesn't hold water. Because even though almost all of these validly warrant criticism, and frequently sharp criticism, of Netanyahu, almost all of them don't justify or explain the deep hatred for him.
After all, for each of these things there is something just as dramatic during the period of the previous administration. For the investigated Liberman there is the investigated Sheves, for the Shas pal Attorney General Bar On there was family friend Attorney General Ben Yair. For the mistake of the Tunnel there is the Temple Mount mistake of Peres, for the fiasco in Amman there are the Mossad fiascos in Lillehammer and London. Against the the-Left-has-forgotten-what-it-is-to-be- ewish (said not for publication by Netanyahu and received wide publication) there is what-stupid-Arabs-these-are (said by Peres for publication but not published at all), and against Netanyahu's two-faced position regarding Likud primaries there is the no less serious two-facedness of Yitzhak Rabin on the matter of the Labor Party,
Chaim Ramon and the Histadrut.]
One possible answer: Benjamin Netanyahu unravels the stitching that binds our obligations as members of a democracy and our obligations as peace supporters.
A few words of explanation are in order: One of the biggest problems of the Israeli democratic model is the problem of dual roles played by its elite class. The same people who fill the ranks of the peace elite also fill the ranks of the democratic- rocess elite. Yet because these two publics draw from the same demographic pool - those who are committed to the idea of peace in its radical-dovish version are the same journalists, jurists and academics who dictate civil and judicial norms - a situation has evolved whereby the members of one particular camp are forced to wear three or four hats: they play on one of the competing teams, they serve as the referee for the competing groups, and they report and comment on the game between the competing teams.
Is this any different than the way our media works...in the way our journalists see themselves? As reporters, they do exactly that: they report on the news, but as journalists, they also interpret it and contribute to the narrative that their audience takes to be the truth. In this regard, Israel has no monopoly--Haaretz really is The New York Times of Israel.
This scenario is fundamentally unethical and untenable. The only way that we members of the elite can withstand the challenge is by building a sort of internal Great Chinese Wall, which would maintain an absolute division between our contrasting missions. Here and there, attempts have been made to build this Great Wall. However, since the 1992 elections - since we began to feel that the majority was on our side, since we began to think we had a chance to throw our opponents onto the trash heap of history - all the lines of demarcation have been blurred. Instead of constituting a normative elite we have become just another one of the savage tribes inhabiting this land. Step by step, we have lost the ability of self-criticism, lost any sense of good taste and shame. We no longer hesitate to use whatever influence we can muster as referees, reporters and commentators to influence the results of the game in our favor. We will do whatever it takes - Chinese Wall be damned - to ensure our final victory. To vanquish, once and for all, the Sons of Darkness on the opposing team.
"Down with Bibi the detestable murderer"? That's nothing. Check out Michelle Malkin's archive on Assassinatin Chic--the fascination with murdering President Bush, particularly the distasteful picture of shirts, stamps, and posters here and here.
Yet despite these efforts - despite our determination not to hold an open democratic referendum on the question of peace, opting instead to make it a retroactive vote on facts that had already been set in motion - the moment of truth came. And when the long-overdue plebiscite on the peace process was finally held on May 29, 1996, the Israeli public told us no. The Israeli public said Netanyahu.
Thus, for us, for the enlightened elite, since the morning of May 30, we have been forced to contend with a situation we could not control. On the one hand, wearing our hat as the democratic elite, we well understood that the people had had their say. And the word of the people is final. As members of a democracy, we knew that government policy would reflect the will of the majority.
But on the other hand, when we put on our peace elite hat, it is obvious that we cannot accept the voter's verdict at face value. We expect that despite the decision of the voter, Netanyahu will continue to implement our peace policies. We expect him to betray his and his voters' own sensibilities.
After all, despite the fact that we strut around wearing our liberal plumage, we have no doubts at all regarding the justice of our cause. Like Gush Emunim and Neturei Karta, it is crystal clear to us that our truth is the only authentic truth. And since the questions on the table have to do with peace and war, life and death, we find it unacceptable that they be decided by an Israeli voting public that is, as we all know, not entirely serious and not entirely rational, not entirely secular and not at all white.
Is our media any less sure of themselves--and disparaging of the general public? Isn't that part of why they look down their nose at bloggers, who don't have the 'expertise' and 'training' of the 'experts'--and are so enraged when bloggers one-up them.
The mechanism we have developed to work our way out of this tangle is to work up a psychosis of hatred for the elected prime minister. To hate him and hate his wife and hate his children. And while we revel in this hatred of all things Bibi, we will feel no compunctions as we trample every cultural norm and every basic concept of fairness.
We will convince ourselves that the prime minister is the devil incarnate. That he is an alien being who by some fraudulent scheme seized hold of the reins of power. He murdered and then he seized power.
But there is a deeper motive for the hatred we feel for Benjamin Netanyahu. Here too some background is called for: In the early 90's, and especially the spring and summer of 1992, the autumn and winter of 1993, and the spring and autumn of 1994, we, the enlightened Israelis, were infected with a messianic craze. Almost without noticing it, our peace movement, which had always been so rational and sober, full of phlegmatic reserve, began to whirl itself into an ecstatic Kabbalistic dervish trance. All of a sudden, we believed that the great global changes underway at the end of the millennium were signaling us that the end of the old Middle East was near. The end of history, the end of wars, the end of the conflict. Like the members of any other messianic movement, we decided to hasten the end, and anointed Yitzhak Rabin as our Messiah.
Yitzhak Rabin was a demonstratively un-messianic person. But for that very reason, because of his reserve and his decency, he was just right for the role we carved out for him. No one could ever suspect Rabin of charlatanism. Meanwhile, we began to pitch our tents around him, dancing around and demanding that he perform miracles for us. That he make a Western Europe out of the Middle East. That he fashion us a Norway out of the Land of Israel and Palestine. Yitzhak Rabin stood there, blushing and embarrassed, knowing that there was something a little suspicious about all the commotion being made, that our apocalyptic prognostications had gone too far. Yet the reveling around Baba Rabin went on. He let it continue, not wanting to disappoint us. He saw how excited we were, and thought why not? Maybe it will work.
But even then, back in the autumn of 1993, Netanyahu was the naysayer. The heretic. Even then he did not raise his voice and did not yell. He'd travel alone from village to village and town to town, repeating in his cool, unemotional voice and stern gaze that we were intoxicated with the fantasy. That we were humiliating ourselves, making a joke of ourselves.
In the beginning, during the first months, Netanyahu did not bother us too much. He was marginal, practically an eccentric. He was a tree falling in the woods with no one to hear it.
But gradually, it became clear that the scenario was not as straightforward as we had believed it would be, that there was something a bit more complex going on here, that there were still loose strings having to do with identity, history and culture, fundamental existential problems. Benjamin Netanyahu began to annoy us more and more. The more reality pushed aside our ecstatic mirage of the oasis in the desert, which had enraptured us to the point of sensory overload, the more Benjamin Netanyahu annoyed us. To the point that when reality finally rushed in, when terrorism struck and Yitzhak Rabin was murdered and we found ourselves once again part of the cruel and complex history from which we thought we had extricated ourselves, it was obvious to us who was to blame. The naysayer was to blame. The Judas Iscariot was to blame. The murderer of the Messiah was to blame.
Who remembers anymore what Bush did and said before 9-11, before 'terrorism struck'? Everything changed afterwards, but after the initial shock and natural drawing together at a time of catastrophe, Bush did not see the attack as an isolated incident or crime. Instead, the word terrorism became commonplace and life for us indeed became cruel and complex. Obama, who noticeably refrains from using the T-word is part of the reaction against the world as painted for us by Bush.
When all is said and done, the truth is that we hate Benjamin Netanyahu so much because the hatred makes life easier for us. Because this hatred responds to our deepest emotional needs. Because hatred of Netanyahu saves us from having to deal with our own internal contradictions and errors. And because hatred of Netanyahu enables us to conveniently forget that before the bubble burst, we had acted like fools. We fooled ourselves with illusions. We were bedazzled into committing a collective act of messianic drunkenness.Indeed, Hatred of Bush became easy--and still is. It was easy and became second nature. No wonder people said that it was impossible to find anything to make fun of in Obama--what they meant is that they couldn't bring themselves to mock and berate Obama to the degree they were used to in disparaging President Bush. Now life can be simpler, as we might again be able to deal with 'terrorists' as mere criminals.
Hatred of Netanyahu also gives us a chance to forget that it was not the rise of Netanyahu that brought on the paralysis of Oslo but the paralysis of Oslo that brought on the rise of Netanyahu. The hatred permits us to keep harboring the notion that everything is really much more simple, that if we only pull back, if we only recognize Palestinian statehood.... The hatred lets us divert our attention from the renewed strength of the Egyptian army, from the pinpoint accuracy of the Syrian missiles, from the Iraqi anthrax and from the Iranian nuclear program. Thanks to our hatred of Netanyahu, we can convince ourselves that if we only beat up our prime minister a little harder, if we could only manage to break his political bones, if we could only vanquish him and get him out of our lives, then everything would revert to the simple, sweet life that once was. Once again, like in the spring and summer of 1992, and the autumn and winter of 1993, we would be able to breath in that exhilarating, heady aroma of the end of history, the end of wars, the end of the conflict. The intoxicating taste of the end of days.
We have long since forgotten that President Bush did not bring about 9-11 or the War on Terror; it is the War on Terror that to a large extent created the Bush Presidency as we remember it.
History will remember Bush differently that what the media has led us to believe.
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