From Israeli scientists to teachers in the education system • From Shasha-Biton in the Corona Committee to Yossi Cohen in the institution • Most of us would like to forget 2020, but there are those who emerge victorious from the crazy year that ends next week
Mossad chief Yossi Cohen
Photography:
Gideon Markovich
The Cubid Center: Netanyahu, Bennett and Shasha-Bitton / Moriah Kor
They used to paint it round with horns, but the scientists who isolated the virus under the magnifying glass saw a crown shape, hence its name: corona.
In the corona crown of Israeli politics, three diamonds were set in 2020: Naftali Bennett, Yifat Shasha-Bitton and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bennett shone from the moment the plague broke out, but each passing day dulls its intensity;
Dr. Shasha-Biton, who revealed from the pages of this newspaper that she had tried her hand in the past as a singer of one hit, became the diamond of one epidemic, and the last - who would have believed that a prime minister who messed up a lot during the epidemic would advance to the grand finale. Sturdy and a needle will blur the Israeli memory and become bitter-immune.
Let's get back to the beginning: It's hard to forget the video circulated by Netanyahu's people on social media in early March, a time when we looked condescendingly at eyewitnesses who passed us at Ben Gurion Airport wearing masks. It's all nonsense.
It is not nonsense, the corona is of course a big problem but we are dealing with it responsibly, and on election day we took care of the complete isolation of the subjects. "
That quote exhausted Netanyahu's attitude as reflected to us, the citizens, throughout the plague - the corona The plague is being treated; when it is being treated, it is important to make sure that the public knows that only Netanyahu is responsible for it and not, say, the defense minister. If only Netanyahu had indicated that the public thinks that when the defense minister deals with it he is doing so
Naftali Bennett, the defense minister in the remarkably functional transitional government, loves challenges and can handle them.
Senior Health Ministry officials debated whether keeping distance is an effective solution for Corona, as Bennett has already reviewed studies from China and Italy, identified dramatic differences in morbidity between children and adults and recorded a message with sweeping guidance: "Do not visit grandparents if you really love them," which became the infrastructure of "From all over the world call to ask us" because within a day common among many countries around the globe.
Bennett // Photo by Eric Sultan
A few days later, Bennett recounts in his book "How to Beat an Epidemic", he had already met a single mother and realized that the economic spaces would be many of the corona's dead;
At the same time, he identified Bnei Brak and ultra-Orthodox society as the core of the social-morbid distress, and the images of hatred were soon replaced by scenes of the unity of Israel, when soldiers evacuated ultra-Orthodox families to hotels.
Bennett, who a moment ago took a wrong political gamble that threw him out of the system, was rewarded with flattering polls and given a chance to demonstrate his range of skills - building on the Corona test case, not on Netanyahu's hatred.
Not far away, the Minister of Housing from the Transitional Government was pushed to the position of chairman of the Corona Committee. Yifat Shasha-Biton was an excellent minister but that does not interest anyone. The Pike News wave, which academic Asha-Biton clung to the truth, and rose to greatness when she stood bravely in front of senior Likud members on the one hand and the hall owners on the other, is equipped with the knowledge that it is power, even without labeling the three captains.
Her insistence on verifying data and not making decisions based on populism, has earned her popularity and second place in Saar's promising party (it is not yet clear what, but promising).
The corona has placed these three figures in a new light.
Will it affect Game of Thrones in the fourth round?
I sincerely hope we know this before the fifth round.
Reluctant Heroes: The Teachers / David Peretz
It is strange to sum up a year when at the moment we are all still in the trenches of the battle, surviving with a shrug, with much resentment and legacy the strange situation called 2020. Now that the vaccine symbolizes hope for change - it is also a prelude to the battle for victory over the victors.
Policy is an abstract concept.
Politicians are spreading words like clouds, and beneath them stand the men of action who must turn ideas that have blossomed into the flowers of action.
But what will zealots do in a year zig-zag?
Where each month brought with it a new whim policy?
From kindergarten to university, by 2020, members of the education system have become pale scouts.
They were sent far beyond the epidemic lines, to try to function in a different, strange and changing world.
When most of us wondered if we would ever go back to the past, teachers created the present present.
With a lot of mistakes and learning while doing, but yes - while watching, adapting, learning and doing.
If in 2019 someone were to offer a scenario in which Israeli children would learn with teachers through computers, you would think it was a naive delusion.
Not because of the children's lack of attention, but because of the general level of appreciation for teachers.
How's the sentence known about them going?
He who knows how to do - does, and he who does not know how to do, teaches how to do.
For years the education system acted as a forgiving teacher, absorbing and containing every possible blame and joke.
What was not said about her - ancient and fixed, archaic and not adapted to the new world.
And here in 2020 it requires a profound and rapid change, and it has demonstrated adaptability under fire.
If in March teachers were still trying to figure out how to connect a microphone to a computer, today they are conducted digitally by a variety of means.
They developed zoom eyes and WhatsApp eyes in the back.
The question "Do you behave like that at home too?"
Gone from the world - the kids were home.
New methods were invented and implemented, new teaching skills were assimilated.
And if teaching from a distance and through screens was not a big enough change, this year a new and especially challenging capsule also joined the class - the parents.
All of us, big and small, were part of the school of closures this year.
And if this is easy for you, imagine your daily work, only with the addition of 40-20 close and critical supervisors for every action you take.
In such a complex and shaky year, the various education systems have succeeded in making a meteoric leap towards the future, and producing agile solutions to countless situations.
Of all the bad things that 2020 has brought with it, one good thing has happened to it: the 17th-century model of education, centered on transferring knowledge from teacher to student, has completely changed.
The children of Israel experienced a routine in the beginning with chaos all around, and this is a commendable achievement of the system.
Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
and who is the system?
Hundreds of thousands of kindergarten teachers, teachers and counselors, lecturers and principals (and also the men among them).
Educators are Don Quixote: ridiculous knights who are going to teach against the economic logic of the period.
As every year, in 2020 they carried the stretcher of Israeli society more vigorously, and at the cost of risking their personal health.
In years to come, when we look back to difficult times, in which many of the systems of government and government have failed and disappointed, we will remember these people in the education system.
They did not blame others but accepted responsibility.
And they are winners of this year, and will continue to win for many years to come.
The man at the end: Yossi Cohen / Yoav Limor
2020 was a relatively calm security year.
All four immediate fronts - Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Syria and Lebanon - were less violent than ever, an outgrowth of Israeli military supremacy, and especially of the undisputed winner of the past year: the corona. The
corona has silenced the world around us. Gaza and Judea and Samaria are terrified and in need To Israel to exist.
Lebanon is broken economically, politically, socially and healthily, and a series of internal events - most notably the explosion in the port of Beirut in the summer - have helped curb Hezbollah, which has been refraining for several months from realizing its threats to avenge the death of one of its Syrian airstrikes.
Syria has apparently been less affected than the corona (not that anyone there is examining or taking the issue seriously), but it is engrossed in its affairs and not interested in clashes that would make it difficult to recover from the civil war.
The U.S. made a significant contribution to calm in this sector, eliminating Qassem Suleimani earlier this year, and significantly disrupted its operations to establish a presence of Shiite militias in Syria and arm its protégés with advanced weapons.
The blow that Iran has suffered in the past year has not only affected the "foreign service" of the Quds Force, which was commanded by Suleimani (who also paid heavy prices in airstrikes in Syria).
She was also beaten inside a house, in a series of actions attributed to an institution on her land.
Three actions stood out in particular: the July sabotage of a plant in the production of advanced centrifuges in Natanz;
The assassination in August of a senior al-Qaeda figure in Tehran;
And the November assassination of nuclear projector Muhsin Fahrizadeh.
These actions taught about the extraordinary operational capability that an institution in Iran allegedly has.
This is a capability that, according to various publications, has been built over the past decade, and began following the operation in which Hamas man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was assassinated in Dubai.
It seems that after the operation, the Mossad decided to reduce the risk to its people, and developed the ability to carry out similar operations with the help of mercenaries working on its behalf - without leaving a trace.
It is likely that this capability has been significantly improved in recent years.
Yossi Cohen urged the organization to go to the edge (and sometimes beyond it) in search of actions that would harm Iran and disrupt its plans.
In this respect, 2020 was particularly good for the organization: it reached operational heights, while knowing how to leverage the broad umbrella of protection that the Trump administration has extended over Israel.
Here, too, Cohen has played a part in success, as one who has developed excellent ties in the outgoing administration, especially with Foreign Minister Pompeo who has become his personal friend.
Yossi Cohen // Photo: Gideon Markovich
But the Mossad's contribution did not end with the operational side.
The organization and its leader also have basic shares in the positive political tsunami that befalls the region.
Along with the National Security Council (which is responsible for agreements with Sudan and Morocco), the Mossad led the construction of relations with the Gulf states, until their publication.
It was the culmination of a process that lasted several decades, and spread across more countries than meets the eye;
This is evidenced by Netanyahu's meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince in the coastal city of Ni'um - in which Cohen participated - and his reported visits to Qatar, Oman and other Muslim countries.
Cohen was due to leave his post and retire next week, but relented at the request of the Prime Minister to extend his term by six months - until June. Reasonably ask them to also take action to continue the momentum which is the organization, although the situation will be more complicated.
With Biden administration, The possibility of resuming talks on a US return to the nuclear deal will surely diminish the operational freedom and political intimacy that have served the Mossad well in recent years.It will be mainly the problem of D., Cohen's successor, who was appointed last week; Cohen himself is already looking ahead to politics, where He will try to continue to leverage his achievements in the institution.
Every man and his wanted man: TV / Adi Rubinstein
It was hard to miss that even with the outbreak of the corona in Israeli prime-time, officials who until March were content with leaks to senior reporters - fell in love with the studio climate.
Suddenly, these anonymous public servants, gray people in the good sense of the word, have become protagonists in a play without a star.
Through the flickering lights of the health and finance ministries, the stars of the hour suddenly emerged and linked their fate to the plague: the longer it lasted, the longer the 15 minutes of fame promised by Andy Warhol far exceeded expectations.
The TV studios embraced the new characters that emerged into our lives as the originators of much loot.
In large and traumatic events such as the corona epidemic, the difference between the behind-the-scenes and the scenes themselves - between the imaginary built in the kind of hidden editing room before the live broadcast, and what happens in the broadcast itself is even more noticeable.
While the CEO, editor-in-chief and staff on the control from which the broadcast is transmitted try to stick to the original design, the talent of the "talent" overcomes the sound of logic heard in the headset. The request to moderate and reassure the public disappears when words like "plague", "dangerous" and " Tight restraint "is said back and forth. The initial, innocent longing to produce" Nachman Shai of the Corona "was replaced by a chain of prophets and forecasters who put the public in suits for mania or depression. The dilemma of the various channels was clear: painting the situation as a national catastrophe would put viewers on screen. On the other hand, it will severely hurt advertising.
In this battle, the talents defeated the CEOs of the news companies and their editors.
The Corona cabinet soon became the locker room of a medium-sized football team in Israel.
The leaks were transmitted in real time, sometimes out of enthusiasm even from text messages asking not to be leaked.
The cabinet, a secret body, we have almost forgotten, has moved around the pushers - the modern consciousness designer of the innocent current consumer.
Thus, the decision-makers' discretion also took into account the immediate headline, the press conferences of Ministry of Health and Prime Minister officials became longer, and the whole serious and fateful envelope took on a grotesque dimension, so much so that it was humorously described on the series as sequels: "When do you give Bibi tonight?"
Niv Sultan in "Tehran".
Photo: Vered Adir
At one point, the Israeli viewer abandoned the campaign of intimidation and contradiction that was seen from the small screen every evening.
While the talents sold their new wares as Corona experts for a lecture on Zoom to local authorities and workers' committees, most of the public chose to take solace in the global boredom - Netflix - and the sports broadcasts that have returned to our lives.
But mostly, the Israelis discovered the original TV creation.
The unrated "Here" corporation took advantage of the domestic incarceration and rained down on us many series in Hebrew from all corners of the spectrum: Mossad ("Tehran"), army ("lock time" and "Lebanon"), police ("Manaich") and cultural and social issues ("rehearsals" "One-on-One"), which provided hope and comfort to an audience that is not content with reality. This is still a minority, as 18 of the 20 programs shown in 2020 tried to match a man and a woman, and alternatively included a cooking or singing contest. But at the end of December, it can be determined Without hesitation - Israeli television has been very respectful of the burden of the Corona plague: whether you insisted on intelligent entertainment, or chose to flee to the abyss of trash, man-to-man got what he wanted.