One of the most annoying things about Israeliness has always been the unity around bereavement. Because why do we have to be murdered to remember that we are all in the same boat? "Why is a terrorist with a weapon the factor that brings Jewish hatred back into proportion?" have asked Hebrew women in recent decades, and over the years the puzzlement has worsened. After all, unity is a natural emotion that should beat us anyway, isn't it?
The funeral of Ofer Fairman in Ali, this week, photo: Jonathan Zindel
Three months after the signing of the Oslo Accords, and after the first victims were buried in Kalashnikovs given as part of the agreement, Mabat opened a dramatic live interview with Ezer Weizmann. It was the bonfire of the Israeli tribe. Everyone watched on the state channel the president of the country, the blood of the murdered does not give him rest. Although known for his leftist views, he called on Rabin to establish a national unity government urgently in light of the blood of the settlers spilled – usually in pairs, by the way – in a series of attacks that took place in Hebron, Ramallah, Wadi Qelt.
Rabin did not heed his request, but one can imagine the public atmosphere that gave rise to the pleas of the president, who saw Arafat as a legitimate and important partner but who did not distinguish between blood and blood when the targets of the murder were national. The concept of "identity politics" had not yet made an increase.
Just not unity
When the three boys were kidnapped in the heart of Gush Etzion exactly nine years ago, there were responses such as "If they hadn't been there, they wouldn't have been killed," voiced by MK Haim Bar-Lev after the murder in Beit Hadassah in 1980. True, it is easy to blame those who live in Judea and Samaria for hitchhiking, and not to think in an advanced way that poor public transportation is a problem that crosses districts and sectors.
Mothers of the abducted boys (archive), photo: Efrat Eshel
But when Racheli Frenkel conquered the screens and spoke English with the other mothers, something in the consensus shifted in the direction of unity. At the boys' funerals, one could feel a national day of mourning, and those who didn't hurt kept quiet.
Since then, much water has flowed in Nahal Hassi and in the toilets of the Knesset cafeteria. "Unity" has become a bad word, "settlers" is a general name for anyone who wears a headscarf and anyone who lengthens their wigs, and death does not liberate from the ranks either.
Once upon a time, the left-wing media's attitude toward the "settlers" was annoying and hypocritical: all year long they curse and hate, but when they are murdered, suddenly they send condolences to the families and shut up in memory of our best sons. Constant frustration nests among the people of Judea and Samaria, whose flourishing communities are shown in prime time only if it is necessary to reach the comfort of mourners.
No one will routinely tell about youth who volunteer more on average than in any other population, about hardworking high school students who work freely at Hummus Eliyahu, as well as counselors in a youth movement and help in their parents' orchard. No one has an interest in showing a modest family that immigrated from England and chose to settle in the Efrat local council, which is no longer just a settlement (15,<> people, literally a finger in the eye), and to focus on post-modernist girls who also study Torah.
It's a pity for screen time, there's no conflict here. Settlers are for docu and funerals, as has been the norm since time immemorial. Their loss, their art. Well, this is another Israeli convention that melted in the heat of the protests. And who would have thought that this hypocrisy could be missed.
Miriam Peretz. The integrity of the people comes first (archive), photo: Oren Ben Hakon
When Rogel Alper killed Miriam Peretz, the bereaved mother who lost Uriel in Lebanon and Eliraz in Gaza, and still the popular connotation from her name is "Moroccan meatballs," that instead of concentrating on the loss she spreads love, the country was shaken. "Haaretz" - less.
It seems that the narrative that dominates the far-left districts after the murder of Jews living in Judea and Samaria has become as tired of them dying as they are of their lives. When Esti Yaniv, the mother of Yagel and Hillel Yaniv, who were murdered during and just before their enlistment in the IDF, said upon learning that the unity of the people is above all else, rioters quickly popped up on Twitter claiming that settlers were a worthy target for murder, and former MKs raised a headstart in favor of the terrorists' village.
If she had said that the Land of Israel was the most important, she would have become the mother of "martyrs." If it says unity is important, it brings the clause equally. Is there even a way to get out okay even when you're sacrificing the most expensive?
Maya, Rina and Lucy Dee z"l, photo: courtesy of the family
With the murder of the Dee family in the Jordan Valley, it was easy to perceive the confusion in the reports: on the one hand they are beautiful extraterrestrials, on the other they are religious. On the one hand, the murder took place in the Jordan Valley, which has not yet been annexed, and on the other hand, it is a place that is a consensus. A news item about the murder of innocents is tendentious and instills words like "settlers" and "West Bank" in the reader's mind to hint to the media consumer when it should be less sad.
Blood thick from Dio
Haaretz does not leave its readers alone this week either, dealing with the murder that took place at Ali Junction.
In the corner of the television review was a scathing analysis of how Almaz Mengistu interviewed Naama Elias, the aunt of 21-year-old Harel Massoud, a day after he was murdered and buried. The family originated from Yad Binyamin in the Sorek Regional Council – not occupied territory, if we adopt the count that begins with the Six-Day War – but the nephew was a hilltop boy, and according to Haaretz's review, that makes him and the screen time his aunt received to talk about him less worthy.
"The settler demand for 'unity' must be rejected out of hand and with disgust," reads the headline of the TV review, pleading with commercial channels to stop letting settlers use the massacre of Palestinians as an excuse for screen time.
So what did we have? It is forbidden to settle, it is forbidden to be religious, it is forbidden to call for unity, it is forbidden to be murdered. At least with the last requirement one can agree.
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