By John Ballard
Via Bernard Avishai.
Sometimes tourists show up at Jerusalem's mental health centers, convinced that a voice from the heavens told them they were the messiah. The illness, commonly known as Jerusalem Syndrome, usually passes once they have left the city. However, Israelis, mostly public figures, have been afflicted with this syndrome for the past 42 years, affecting their ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Jerusalem has become the Disneyland of the Jewish people.
For many of those affected by this disturbing disease, it extends beyond Jerusalem. It begins with the transformation of an Arab village in the middle of the West Bank into a "Jerusalem neighborhood," and ends with the description of occupied territory in the heart of the West Bank, like Ariel, as "a settlement bloc." First we shape a new reality for ourselves; then we expect the entire world to adopt it, demand that our neighbors pay the cost, and complain that we have no partner for peace.
This piece is not much longer, but possibly upsetting for some.
The clock continues to tick.
In a democratic society like the one in Israel, it is understood that the unification of the two parts of the city carries with it equality for all its residents. But in actuality, nearly half the Palestinian students in East Jerusalem do not study in the municipal education system; some 9,000 of them do not appear on the records of the city's education authorities, and it is not known whether they receive any form of education. The Education Ministry and the Jerusalem municipality have promised the Supreme Court that they will build at least 645 classrooms in East Jerusalem to start making up for the shortfall; more than 1,350 classrooms are needed. In practice, less than 100 new classrooms have been built. To this day, filth, neglect and unpaved roads clearly mark the border between the two peoples living in the city.
Posts like this write themselves. I can't think of anything to add.
An interesting comment from this post at TMV:
ReplyDelete"Dr e - Israel used to be primarily secular. I've been going back and forth since 1956. However, the secular community has been shrinking from old age and small family size and emmigration. You would be amazed at how many of the best and brightest of the secular children go abroad for college and stay. The Othodox and Ultra-orthodox have been growing tremendously all along (average family size of 8) and this has been skewing the demographics for decades. That demographic shift was temporarily halted by the vast flow of Russian "Jews". but that effect is abating and we are getting back to tremedous growth of the religious Jew demographics.
For the truly religious Jew, there are extremely strict requirements for Halacha and their desire that this be the law of Israel, a Jewish nation. Thus we get open fights on such things as who can marry whom, what conversions are legal and recognized, the fights to close the parking lot and Intel on Shabatt etc etc etc. This is a low grade cultural/religious Civil war and given the demographic momentum, I suspect many seculars will find Israel unliveable within 30 years. There are towns in Israel that as a condition of continuing residence make Halacha observance mandatory. Even the IDF is not immune to these pressures. My own nephew( a captain, regular, in the Golani Brigade) is leaving the IDF after 17 years unable to put up with the attitude of the religious right who are joining the IDF in droves."