Important Article about Israel

This article in the LA Times about growing intolerance of others in Israel is worth considering. It reflects what most Israeli papers have been commenting on over the past week. Speaking to our Israeli relatives, a generally pretty centrist group, we see milder forms of suspicion and distrust.

I see two trends in this concern over intolerance and racism. First, while Israel has, as the article points out, enjoyed one of the calmest years in recent history in terms of terrorist attacks, Israelis are very concerned about external threats coming from Islamic countries as well as from Palestinian militants, especially Hamas. Iran represents multiple threats: nuclear weapons, support for Hezbollah, interference in Lebanon and Syria. Various militant groups in Gaza have been throwing rockets and mortars across the border into southern Israel in recent weeks in "defiance" of Hamas' ban on such attacks. Etc., etc. I think this concern over external threats gets translated into distrust and intolerance of those who are different.

The second trend I see is more insidious and more dangerous. Israel was initially a special place, especially to us outsiders from the Diaspora, because of its pioneer spirit. Israelis pulled together to build a nation from the sands and swamps of the Holy Land. They served together in the army. Wherever they were from, once they arrived here, they quickly became falafel eating Israelis. Some years ago, I got my wife's aunt and uncle to tell us the story of their arrivals in Israel, their participation in the wars following Independence. The stories were very moving. However, their grandchildren don't know those stories and , worse,  don't really seem to care much. Israel to them is a very different place, a place of prosperity and comfort, of minimal obligations to the state, a place to get on with life. This indifference to halutz, the pioneer spirit that built the country, can easily breed intolerance as the threats that Israel must live with become annoyances that people want to separate themselves from. Desire for separation makes intolerance easy.

I hope Israel's great center (as the article calls it) will in fact assert itself and return some sanity to the public debate over who should live next to whom, who Jewish women should date, whether people who are different are threatening. The Gabrielle Giffords shooting in the US has done much to lower the rhetoric there. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 did much to lower it here for a while. I hope another incident of that type is not required to bring the public debate and private attitudes to a more civilized level.