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The State of Israel: The Wonder We Are All Blessed With Became a Beam of Light to the World in a Global Crisis | Israel today

2021-04-14T19:14:10.932Z


| In the country The never-ending chain of elections creates a sense that everything is stuck, that the chosen people are becoming the electorate • But beyond the hardships of politics and the plight of the Corona, Israel is a dizzying success • Let's do everything to keep us all proud of our Israeliness and our Israel Israel is 73 years old Photo:  Photo: Eyal Margolin, Ginny Anyone who is willing to look up


The never-ending chain of elections creates a sense that everything is stuck, that the chosen people are becoming the electorate • But beyond the hardships of politics and the plight of the Corona, Israel is a dizzying success • Let's do everything to keep us all proud of our Israeliness and our Israel

  • Israel is 73 years old

    Photo: 

    Photo: Eyal Margolin, Ginny

Anyone who is willing to look up for a moment from the hardships of politics and the corona, and examine the success of the project named the State of Israel from a broad historical perspective, knows that it deserves to be crowned a dizzying success.

Anyone who prefers - and there are quite a few recently - to assess the state of the nation based on the titles of the editions, will find himself missing the Stone Age.

What to do that crying and sneezing have become fashionable in the political-media space today.

Write it first, before me - our national sport is grumbling.

But we have recently brought it to the level of elite art.

We are champions at painting everything in gloomy shades of failure and omission;

Every mishap is seen as a "crisis," and all frustration intensifies into a "cry," and we are convinced that every difficulty is the "end of the third house."

True, the never-ending chain of elections creates a sense that everything is stuck, and that the elected people are becoming the electing people.

It's exhausting, and discouraging.

What did we already want?

A functioning government and leaders willing to work together for us after four elections?

And the corona virus that made us famous and left us without oxygen and with a heavy suffocation in our throats - created a feeling of continual helplessness.

Leading Western countries, of the kind that have always explained to us that we need to learn from them what a reformed country looks like, converge on further closures and look enviously at our vaccination campaign and our jubilant return to the spring routine.

Still, it can no longer be said that it is behind us - not medically, not economically, not educationally, and maybe not even socially.

And yet, with all the difficulty and challenges of the past year - it is allowed to put some proportion.

After all, at the height of the political turmoil, as it is rocked from election to election, the Israeli government manages to tick off an unparalleled impressive vaccination campaign here.

And here, even as the corona ties its hands back, our leadership manages to bring about four peace agreements, and according to some reports and speculations - also to show our neighbors and the whole world that we know and intend to take care of ourselves.

So maybe, maybe, not everything is so awful.

And proportions - also historical;

I think of the things that previous generations have faced: existential and bloody wars, terrible waves of terror, periods of austerity and economic crises ... each generation and its share.

Not sure I would have run to change.

But, we are told, it used to be different.

There was solidarity, there was brotherhood, there was a sense of togetherness, there was a common goal.

That's right - and wrong. 

I remember myself as a child, watching excitedly at Israel's military parade, on her 25th birthday.

I remember the pride my parents felt.

There were those who came to the parade on foot, and those who parked not far from a fancy American car (those were the days when only a handful could afford to own a car, and the American cars were considered a unique luxury).

And it's not that there were no social tensions, and it's not that inequality bothered me less.

But when it came to the state, there was indeed a sense of partnership: the state of us all equally.

Who then thought in terms of "stole my country" or "give me back the old and beautiful country"?

And it's also true that with a red party card you were a little more "belonging" and you might have had a little more friends in the right places, but my parents, who preferred Begin, did not feel for a moment that they were cut off from events, joys and national experience.

And that, I allow myself to say, is a bit worn out.

And no, I do not doubt anyone's feelings of patriotism or love of country.

We all - right and left, religious and secular, Israel First and Second Israel, Jews and Arabs - we all care about this country equally.

But a feeling creeps in that we feel it's ours - on limited bail.

Maybe it's this political thriller that goes unresolved, and maybe it's the passionate and personal politics that come at the expense of ideology.

And maybe it's just an impression that is amplified because of the culture of social networks, for the aggressiveness and the venomous aggression in them.

We will continue to be proud

A feeling that if "our" side is not running the show, then it is "not the same country" anymore.

A feeling that "they have taken over" and that "my country has changed its face", and that if we do not lead, then we are already less proud of the country, the country, the people.

And that is, perhaps, more than any exaggerated myth about "racism" and "apartheid," something we deserve to correct, before it becomes a rift.

Bring back the sense of belonging and partnership beyond all controversy and competition.

If my great-grandfather knew what kind of trouble our generation would "enjoy," he would be sure it was being worked on.

If he had imagined that his country would ever have intelligence and military capabilities to cause power outages thousands of miles away, that it would be the "start-up nation" and technology that would solve the water crisis and approach energy independence, forge warm alliances and friendly ties with the region. Never in a global crisis - he was afraid to express it, lest he be hospitalized in a closed ward.

So for my great-grandfather, and his friends and colleagues and his contemporaries, and for the generation that will one day call us "our ancestors," let us insist on doing everything so that all of us, but all of us, continue to be proud of our Israeliness, and of our Israel.

We have all the reasons in the world.

happy Independence Day!

Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2021-04-14

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