For a long time now, we have all experienced very unpleasant discourse on social media, including curses, insults, comparisons to animals that are not pets, and wishes for an agonising death or an invasive procedure involving an infiltrator from an African country - for anyone who disagrees with your opinion on something. But the use of belligerent words is not only the province of rude talkbackers.
Almost every Israeli regularly uses warlike terms, probably because we are a persecuted people surrounded by enemies and sergeants, who for thousands of years have been accustomed to being on the run and defending against the Philistines and Amalekites, through the Holocaust, the Pharaohs to missiles from Gaza, suicide bombers, Hezbollah and Roger Waters.
As a result, we have adopted a variety of belligerent expressions into the discourse, which we also use for clearly non-military matters. There are those who say that words create reality, and that perhaps it would be calmer here if we adopted a less combative discourse. Almost everything here is defined as a war and a struggle, including the war on road accidents, the war on the cost of living, the war on the coronavirus, the war on air pollution, the fight against organized crime, the battle over teachers' salaries, the battle for the leadership of the Histadrut, the battle for the union or the battle for the Milky.
And the question arises: Do we really have to fight all the time, even when we are not in uniform? And isn't it possible to refine, in the slightest, the general volume, and the Syrian jargon on the fences? After all, we created the cost of living, so instead of "fighting" it, isn't it better to just "deal with" the issue? The prices can simply be "lowered" without mobilizing reserves, armored personnel carriers and declarations of war.
We have amusing and common expressions such as: "What is not solved in the brain will be solved by force, and what is not solved by force will be solved with more force." And that's how it sounds in our everyday speech. When someone wants to look at you closely, they don't just come closer, they look you in the white of the eyes, not because they're an optometrist, but to show that they're fearless and ready for elimination.
When children have lice, the advertisements do not use medical terms but urge us to "eliminate" (lice, not children), and detergent manufacturers recommend that we give a death blow to cockroaches, mosquitoes and mice, and actually encourage us to commit genocide (I wonder when the "Let lice Live" organization will be established, which will call for an end to lice murder and release them back into the wild). One of the banks recently announced the establishment of a "CEO Patrol" to handle customer affairs, with the sound corresponding nicely with the renowned cruiser with the illustrious and deadly battle legacy - even if in the case of the banks they mainly destroy our savings.
Child education experts recommend that parents create a "united front" against them, as if this were a bloody war zone in Ukraine where ISIS Kids is fighting, not our sweet children. The children, for their part, got the hint, and a child knows that if he doesn't clean up the mess he left, "Daddy will kill him."
Only here for a movie about a sympathetic soccer team from a northern town they called "Beit Shean - War Movie", and when fans want to cheer for the Israeli national team, they shout at the pace of "Israel, war", maybe because in wars we are better than in football, and it's a shame that there is no World Cup for armies.
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Even when they once wanted to do a campaign to encourage cleanliness, they used concepts from the worlds of elimination and targeted killing, writing: "The waste to the basket, and eliminate." When two people have a different view of the facts, a version war is declared. And when someone wants to lose weight, they declare a war on carbs and a fight against weight.
When someone delivers an important message, he "drops a bomb." When someone is determined, they are said to "charge with a knife between their teeth," presumably so that their hands are free to strangle someone. If he is not focused and tries different ways, he "shoots in all directions." And when someone criticizes his fellow party or faction members, they accuse him of "shooting inside the APC" - so what if in the army he was a security officer in the Kirya?
When someone tries to explain himself or decides to "lower his profile a bit" (another military term), he is accused of going on the defensive or going down to a bunker. If you've done something impressive, you're a cannonball, and when someone is efficient, determined, and decisive, he "charges" at the task and rushes forward "like a tank." The performance was a "shell". A girl who looks good is a "bomb". And when someone managed to make an audience laugh, he no longer rolled with laughter, but "killed us."
Prices in the supermarket are not high, they are "slaughter". And when you want to lower prices there, you go out, like Cast Lead or Pillar of Defense, for an "operation" – or announce a liquidation sale.
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Mishaps happen to everyone, but when it happens to you twice a week, and when the only reason you can think of this coincidence is "because I'm dumb" - that's already a problem. The first time was last week, at the end of a successful performance in Petah Tikva, when I went down to the parking lot to make it to at least the end of a friend's wedding.
I don't want to blame anyone, but as soon as the performance ended, the first lady called me and asked when I was coming, in a tone that made it clear that she would be happy if I moved my bottom quickly, and that my experiences from the performance interested her lipstick tip.
Due to inattention, scatterbrained thought, and a certain forced haste, I shifted into reverse gear and heard a loud boom. Turns out I entered the page. Fortunately, it didn't collapse, and the Hall of Culture in Petah Tikva remained standing, but the estimated damage to the tambon and the taillight pretty much canceled out all the compensation from the show I just finished. A few days later, as had happened to me before, I was tempted to think I understood mechanics, and decided to check oil in the car. The guy at the gas station explained to me that it was his first day on the job and that he wasn't strong on oil, and that's where the mistake began. At my advanced age, I should have understood that my hands are left-handed and that I am not the type that knows how to repair a car, assemble a locker or drill a hole in the wall for a dibble - without it ending in disaster.
But in my unrealistic imagination, I'm a cred-to-the-line mechanic, Bob the builder, a gnarled handyman with a ticked toolbox just waiting to be assigned a task to solve with Jabka behind his back. So I opened the oil lid, pulled out the gauge, cleaned it like a pro with a rag - and identified a deficiency. I filled in the blanks and drove off.
A few kilometers later, the car filled with smoke. At first, I cursed at the truck driving in front of me, remarking to myself that it was simply rude that people were shamelessly polluting the air, and that in a civilized country such a person would have been immediately taken off the road. But after another ten kilometers, when I could no longer breathe, I realized that the terrible smell was coming from my own car.
When I reached my belongings after 50 km, I opened the hood to look (as if my observation had meaning). And then even I realized the mistake: I did fill with oil, and even the right oil and not canola, but I probably left the cork at the station. The oil flew in all directions and stank the engine. The next day I went back to the station, but there was no trace of the quota. This, of course, cost me a trip to the garage, buying a new quota and canceling half a day's work, but as Meir Ariel, who was a great poet but not a mechanic, once said, "Whoever gets screwed once / can't quit it anymore."
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