The state of Israel, at least according to stories I have been told, was built on a basis of sweat, toil and love. Swamps drained, deserts transformed – the stuff of legends. But reading the latest Hebrew newspapers and listening to the radio one is filled with the sense that ‘Zionism’ has all but vanished – at least the Zionism of yore.
The Israel Defense Forces is famed for two things: being one of the best, if not the best, military forces in the world, and for perhaps being able to keep secrets not only from its enemies, but also from its own soldiers. The latter has led to a degree of skepticism about the IDF’s true intentions in recent years. As such, it is perhaps no real surprise that many soldiers are asking why there has been a call-up this week of five battalions of reservists.
The IDF maintains they are necessary given the 46 concrete warnings of possible terror attacks. Reservist-representative groups claim the IDF’s citing this as a reason for the call-up is a bluff. They maintain there were at least as many alerts six months ago, but there was no mass call-up then.
While the soldiers may be correct, this sense of a lack of trust in what was once a beloved army is troubling for hardened Zionists. It comes hot on the heels of the decision by more than 25 pilots to refuse to take part in targeted killings over Palestinian civilian areas. Once again here, the pilots may well be justified in their approach, but their bold step is perhaps symptomatic of a wider malaise in Israeli society.
In days gone by the state was paramount – a tradition upheld in the Soviet era and even today in the United States – yet in Israel, the state seems to have become a vehicle for using and abusing. The state welfare system does not seem to sufficiently differentiate between the really needy and the spongers. Lines in official offices are never filled with people quietly waiting to receive a service, but rather with the sounds of dissent and dissatisfaction.
The people expect.
This is neither the time nor the place for a debate on the merits of a welfare state or on the state versus the individual. This item is simply pointing out that just 55 years after the establishment of the state that initial euphoria and sense of sharing has all but disappeared – pretty much symbolized by the ongoing collapse of the kibbutz movement, the ultimate in share and share alike.
2003 Israel looks like any other modern state, streamlined, but with many cracks. There are those in this tiny country who believe that is an achievement. No longer the Jewish state, for a bunch of international refugees, but an economy, just like the others in the G-23. Others see it as a curse, as the back-turning on 2000 years of prayers for a return to the homeland and the building of a unique culture centered on all the offices of a Jewish state.