When it comes to the coronavirus, it seems everyone is looking for ways to circumvent the rules
Israelis have been obsessively afraid of external threats for decades – Palestinians, Iran, Hizbullah. This fear has distorted Israel’s politics, ruined its sense of priorities, polarized society and produced a political stalemate.
If only the people would focus instead on domestic issues, so the thinking goes, the parties would realign, the stalemate would disappear and we could start fixing what’s really wrong – like the underfunded healthcare system, overcrowded schools and lagging public transport.
So now we’re facing a real domestic threat.
The coronavirus could kill thousands. You’d think this would be the time for Israelis to pull together, look out for each other and link arms to defeat the “enemy.” Instead, Israelis are ignoring simple, effective measures to deal with the crisis and are fighting each other.
So the question isn’t the title of my second book – Why Are We Still Afraid? [1] It’s “Why aren’t we afraid?”
Fear is a good basis for dictatorship, not democracy. Fearing the coronavirus would not lead to the necessary realignment of Israel’s politics, so let’s not fear the pandemic.
But how about a bit of, say, concern? Concern for the deaths, concern for our personal safety, concern for the health of our fellow Israelis?
Instead, ultra-Orthodox Jews battle police over lockdown restrictions that include banning large gatherings, like synagogue prayers. Opponents of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu battle police over their right to demonstrate in large numbers despite the obvious health dangers. Other Israelis ignore the basics – masks over mouth and nose, social distancing and handwashing – even though it’s clear that if everyone were to follow just these three rules, there would be no need for lockdowns.
Instead, practically everyone, it seems, is looking for ways to circumvent the rules, up to and including telling police at roadblocks all kinds of fairy tales about why they’re driving around in violation of the lockdown.
Practically everyone, it seems, is looking for ways to circumvent the rules, up to and including telling police at roadblocks all kinds of fairy tales about why they’re driving around in violation of the lockdown
My synagogue is three-quarters of a mile from my house, just outside the limit. So I’m praying at home despite the urging of friends, including a Ph.D. and a medical doctor, to go to morning services anyway.
“There aren’t any police on the streets that early,” says one. “You’re close enough to the 1,000-meter limit. No one is going to measure it,” observes another. “I’m only going to follow the rules that make logical sense,” declares a third.
The common denominator for all these examples is the belief that some things are more important than fighting a pandemic that could soon have killed more Israelis than the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
That war is considered one of Israel’s worst and most traumatic catastrophes. So why are we so painfully dismissive in the face of today’s threat?
That war is considered one of Israel’s worst and most traumatic catastrophes. So why are we so painfully dismissive in the face of today’s threat?
One of the factors that feed this lack of concern is arrogance, the feeling that no one knows better than me about … well, anything.
Another is, for lack of a better term, bloody-mindedness. In many democratic nations, the citizen’s first instinct is to obey the laws. The first Israeli instinct is to find a way around them.
The only way to override these basic behaviors is to appeal to the caring side of Israelis – and yes, it’s there. Israelis volunteer on a level unknown in most of the world. They support countless charities that help the needy. They come together in times of tragedy.
Except for this time. This time, the government’s appeals for concern, for obedience, for empathy have fallen flat.
This by itself, without going into the obvious reasons, is a bad enough failure to warrant the replacement of the government.
It really should not be beyond the ability of any government to rally its people around the goal of just keeping everyone alive. In fact, that’s the basic reason for having a government at all.
It really should not be beyond the ability of any government to rally its people around the goal of just keeping everyone alive. In fact, that’s the basic reason for having a government at all
So it’s not a matter of policing and enforcement, fines and quarantines. It’s a matter of trust. Of common purpose.
Whatever else they have accomplished, Israel’s leaders have failed in their most important mission: forging unity to protect the population against a lethal outside threat. Yet they’re still in office, still playing their sectoral political games, still losing the confidence of the people.
But before we get all self-righteous, the people voted this government in. Again. And again.
That’s a good reason to be afraid.