So we are in good company. We are no worse than the others. If they can do it, why not us?
But there is a big difference: Israel is not in the same situation as Holland or Sweden. Unlike these countries, Israel's very existence is threatened by fascism. It can lead our state to destruction.
Years ago. I believed that two miracles had occurred in Israel: the revival of Hebrew language and Israeli democracy.
The resurrection of a "dead" language has never succeeded anywhere else. Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, once asked contemptuously: "Will people ask for a railway ticket in Hebrew?" (He wanted us to speak German.) Today, the Hebrew language fares better than the Israeli railway.
But Israeli democracy is an even greater miracle. It did not grow from below, as in Europe. The Jewish people never had a democracy. The Jewish religion, like almost all religions, is totalitarian. The immigrants who flowed to the country had also never experienced democracy before. They came from Czarist or Bolshevik Russia, from Josef Pilsudski's authoritarian Poland, from tyrannical Morocco and Iraq. Only an infinitesimal part came from democratic countries. And yet: from its earliest beginnings, the Zionist movement fostered an exemplary democracy in its ranks, and the State of Israel continued this tradition (with one limitation: a full democracy for Jews, a limited democracy for Arab citizens.)
I was always worried that this democracy was hanging by a thin thread, that we must be on our guard every hour, every minute. Now it is facing an unprecedented test.
The German republic carried the name of Weimar, the town where the constituent assembly adopted its constitution after World War I. The Weimar of Bach and Goethe was one of the cradles of German culture.
It was a shiningly democratic constitution. Under its wings, Germany saw an unprecedented intellectual and artistic bloom. So why did the republic collapse?
Generally, two causes are identified: humiliation and unemployment. When the republic was still in its infancy, it was forced to sign the Versailles peace treaty with the victors of the First World War, a treaty that was but a humiliating act of surrender. When the republic fell behind with the payment of the huge indemnities levied on it, the French army invaded the industrial heartland of Germany in 1923, precipitating a galloping inflation a trauma Germany has not recovered from to this day.
When the world economic crisis broke out in 1929, the German economy broke down. Millions of despairing unemployed sank into abject poverty and cried out for salvation. Hitler promised to wipe out both the humiliation of defeat and the unemployment, and fulfilled both promises: he gave work to the unemployed in the new arms industry and in public works, like the new autobahns, in preparation for war.
And there was a third reason for the collapse of the republic: the growing apathy of the democratic public. The political system of the republic just became loathsome. While the people were sinking into misery, the politicians went on playing their games. The public was longing for a strong leader, to impose order. The Nazis did not overthrow the republic. The republic imploded, the Nazis only filled the void.
In Israel there is no economic crisis. On the contrary, the economy is flourishing. Israel did not sign any humiliating agreement, like the Treaty of Versailles. On the contrary, it won all its wars. True, our fascists speak about the "Oslo criminals", much as Hitler ranted against the "November criminals", but the Oslo agreement was the opposite of the Versailles treaty, which was signed in November 1919.
If so, what does the profound crisis of Israeli society stem from? What causes millions of citizens to regard with complete apathy the doings of their leaders, contenting themselves with shaking their heads in front of the TV set? What causes them to ignore what's happening in the occupied territories, half an hour's drive from their home? Why do so many declare that they do not listen to the news or read newspapers anymore? What is the origin of the depression and despair, which leave open the road to fascism?
The state has arrived at a crossroads: peace or eternal war. Peace means the foundation of the Palestinian state and the evacuation of the settlements. But the genetic code of the Zionist movement is pushing towards the annexation of the whole of the historical country up to the Jordan River, and directly or indirectly - the transfer of the Arab population. The majority of the people is evading a decision by claiming that "we have no partner for peace" anyhow. We are condemned to eternal war.
Democracy is suffering from a growing paralysis, because the different sectors of the people live in different worlds. The secular, the national-religious and the orthodox receive totally different educations. Common ground between them is shrinking. Other rifts are gaping between the old Ashkenazi community, the Oriental Jews, the immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, and the Arab citizens, whose separation from the rest is increasing all the time.
For the second time in my life, I may have to witness the collapse of a republic. But that is not predestined. Israel is not the goose-stepping Germany of those days, 2010 is not 1933. The Israeli society can yet sober up in time and mobilize the democratic forces within itself.
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