Last week I visited Australia. An amazing country at the end of the world, whose location, together with beauty and character, made it almost carefree. Australians themselves summarize it in their most common phrase – no worries – no worries.
I met quite a few Jews and Israelis, including many who relocated to the fifth continent, each for his own reasons. I couldn't find a single one among them who was sorry. Everyone, on the other hand, misses and mostly worries. The smiling Australian calm disappears abruptly and is replaced by deep concern when talking about Israel. Worrying about what's happening, worrying about what's going to happen.
They can be dismissed on the grounds that it is none of their business. Those who choose to go down (or not to go up) are limited in their right to visit and care. This is a threefold mistake: first, because the State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people, with all that this implies. Second, because Israel knows how to take money and political support from them, and there are no free meals. Third, because they are right. It is precisely from thousands of kilometers away that it is easy to discern the extent to which the entire State of Israel has been wrecked and found itself in a dangerous and destructive spiral.
In the past, their concerns about Israel were different – existential in the security sense, about wars, terror attacks, tragedies. Every meeting would start in Gaza and end in Iran, or vice versa. The allegations were about failed advocacy on the Palestinian issue, or about issues related to the rights of women and minorities. Today they are concerned only with the internal situation. To distill the question I've heard too many times from too many people: Am I sure Israel will survive?
Other concerns. Playing golf in Australia, photo: AFP
My absolute answer was and still is - yes. Not because you don't wash your dirty laundry outside. In this day and age, this is meaningless: every word here, in the mainstream media or on social networks, is translated and flies to the ends of the world in seconds. Australians may drive on the left and live in opposite seasons of the year, but they are well followed and informed. This is true of the Jews, and it is even more true of the Israelis. The number of people living on a double clock – local, Australian and Israeli – is inconceivable. They watch Israeli TV, read Israeli media, and generally live and breathe (also) in Hebrew.
My positive answer stemmed from another reason: I am a great believer in Israel. In her abilities, in her people, in her will to live. It is true that the past few months have undermined many social conventions, but nevertheless – the foundation that made Israel what it is, a one-time global miracle that has no parallel, is still here, stable and solid, enabling the rehabilitation and healing of the wounds and bruises caused.
Go ahead
In order for this to happen, you need everyone's goodwill. It is possible to start an endless race of accusations, a discouraging circular process that ends at the beginning, because neither side can be convinced by the arguments of the other side. "Everything has already been said" - Arkady Duchin wrote well, and the time has come for solutions. Go forward, instead of banging your head against the wall.
New Year is a great time for this. Not because of the symbolism of the holiday and the hope that we will really embark on a new path, because these empty promises are like those who sin again a minute after fasting, but because we will all have a lot of time in the coming weeks to think: about what happened, and about what might happen in every possible arena – security and political, economic and technological, and especially social.
Anyone who thinks this is panic will not be convinced anyway, but the data signal otherwise. Israel is at a political low (the Saudi incident is different) and in a more complex security danger than ever before (starting with the Iranian nuclear program and in every possible arena). The economy is in decline (foreign exchange rates, the growing deficit, the money leaving the country), high-tech in freefall (a sharp decline in foreign investment, a sharp increase in brain abandonment), and above all the internal rift that cries out from all sides – in statements by ultra-Orthodox elected officials and what has been said about them, in the shocking situation on the Arab street, and in the growing sense that we are living in anarchy in which an honest person in his eyes will do (and usually these are very dishonest actions).
Some believe that God will arrange everything. They have fun. Even if Divine Providence helps Israel survive, those who shed blood to make it happen in practice are those who serve in the IDF and security forces. The 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War is an excellent opportunity to remind ourselves of the obvious: that even if we all pray really hard, without a strong army we will not have a state (by the way, even without a strong economy, no, to the attention of anyone who underestimates the contribution of high-tech people to Lala Land, which now allows various sectors to snatch as much as they can).
Just live
The prime minister, who will visit Silicon Valley next week, will talk a lot about artificial intelligence and cyber. It will sound great in English, but in Hebrew we have other, much more acute concerns. The main question is what we want to have here: an extremist state led by a handful of irresponsible elements in the government and the Knesset, or a sane, logical and fair state, as Israel has always been careful to be, under the rule of both the right and the left.
If the first answer is accepted, we will have to pray a lot to endure. If the second answer prevails, and we must hope so, Israel will be able to return to itself. To strengthen security and deterrence, to rehabilitate the economy and restore investor confidence, to fight crime and violence, and to do everything that a sane country is supposed to do when it wakes up in the morning – not to fight itself but to live. Just live.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a toast to the New Year, photo: Haim Tzach / GPO
Australia is an example of a country that does this. True, they don't even have a thousandth of our troubles and have many virtues, but it's worth taking some of the good stuff from them (and there are many). It is highly doubtful that we will ever be able to achieve the calm that they have, and yet, as the new year unfolds, I wish we had just one moment when we could say no worries to ourselves. Happy New Year.
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