Abraham, the Smurfs and the Israeli elections
The Smurfs are Jewish. Or at least some of them are. The Smurfette, for sure, is undoubtedly a Jewish Princess (please accept my apologies for evoking a stereotype).
Another recognisably Jewish character is Brainy Smurf, with his glasses and love for talking. Brainy Smurf is certainly one of the smarter of the lot. He is known for his pearls of wisdom, which he has collected in several volumes entitled “The Quotations of Brainy Smurf”, from which he quotes extensively.
Following the Israeli elections, the Brainy Smurfs among us have opened their Book of Quotations and lavished the Jewish world and the rest of the Universe, with their wisdom and anxieties. So now we learnt that because 10% of the votes went to a Far Right party (and 90% elsewhere), the time has come for “a fundamental change to our relationship with Israel”. The same Brainy Smurfs endorse a warmer relationship between British Jews and the gang of not elected crooks led by Abu Mazen, a Holocaust denier. So it’s easy to guess which sort of change they are salivating in anticipation.
Strangely enough, no one is calling to change the relationship with Sweden or to renounce the ideals of Social Democracy. Even if in that Country, 17.5% of the voters have voted for the Far Right Party that is now part of the Government coalition.
Don’t get me wrong. I am worried about the electoral success of Itamar Ben Gvir and Meloni, the Swedish Democratic and all the Fascists and populists parties of that kind. They used to be lunatic fringes, and now they literally dictate the agenda. This is alarming.
Ben Gvir, Smootrich and Fascists like them have a dangerous racist anti-Arab agenda — not what we need in the time of the Abraham Accords. They want to butcher the balance between judicial and political systems (a never settled issue in Israel). They want to shrink the pool of Jews eligible to make alya, which is a tragedy. There is an entire wave of Jewish immigration to Israel (60.000 only this year). The Jewish State must welcome them and help them to settle, regardless of their religious background! Think how a Russian Jew who cannot prove his status may feel now. Or an Ethiopian Jew. Or a Jew who belongs to the LGBTQ community. Not knowing if you can immigrate to Israel, the only place you can be a citizen, is a tragedy!
I believe that the Jewish institutions in the Diaspora, British included, must pressure the Israeli government on behalf of Reform. Liberal and Masorti converts. Their right to immigrate to Israel and become Israeli citizens must remain safe as it is now.
But we must also understand the reasons of those Israelis who have voted for the Far Right. Like the clashes between Jews and Arabs in the so-called mixed cities, which the previous Governments have been unable to prevent. The reason for the support to the Israeli Far Right has a name: insecurity.
You see, Fascism stems from insecurity, one could argue. Fascism is when you know you cannot win the discussion with words, so you recur to violence. I know it, because I have been subject to Fascism in its Left wing variety. Remember when a group of militants were planning to march on this synagogue because they did not like what I wrote on social media?
Ben Gvir and Smootrich are Fascist because they are not secure in their Judaism. This is why they are so suspicious of the purity of other people’s Judaism. This is why they instigate hate against the Arabs, whom they see as a menace. This is the reason for their homophobia because the existence of a free and proud LGBTQ community -such as the Israelis- makes them insecure about their own masculinity.
This is also why they want to subjugate the judiciary not to God, as the ultra-orthodox wish, but to “the people”. And unfortunately, these days, these feelings of insecurity are widespread and shared by many Israeli Jews. A part of which has voted for the Fascists.
Because everybody can become a Fascist. Everybody experiences insecurity. Even Israelis, even Jews, and even Abraham himself.
This week’s Torah portion is full of episodes where we see Abraham’s insecurity, including, for example, the part we have read. At the very opening, we read that God tells Abraham “Al Tirah” [Gen 15:1] “, Have no fear!”. There must have been a reason for God to open a conversation this way. We can only imagine how deeply insecure Abraham was if God Himself must intervene!
Leon Ashkenazi, one of the greater Jewish thinkers of the 20th century, points out the most clamorous example of Abraham’s insecurity in chapt 18. Abraham starts arguing with God on behalf of the people of Sodom to save them from destruction. If Abraham had been more secure in his Judaism and faith, he would have converted the people of Sodom! And make them good people so they do not deserve God’s punishment anymore. But Abraham prefers to argue with God instead. With no results, Sodom will be destroyed anyway. Well done, Abraham, you spoke perfectly, but to the wrong person…
No human being is always 100% secure in themselves. No human being is exempt from the possibility of becoming a Fascist, of being seduced by the worship of violence, by the fascination for physical confrontation, by the ideology of law and order as a supreme goal.
This is, by the way, the reason why so much of contemporary, violent “anti-Fascism” is Fascist in itself. Because they also worship violence and do politics “to restore order” (like the Fascists). Only the order they want to restore is of a different kind. And by the way, people like me and you (“the Zionists”) have no place in either order, the Fascist and the anti-Fa.
Now, back to our opinionated Brainy Smurfs and their insecurities about the state of democracy in Israel, where they do not live. And back the radical solution they suggest, “to fundamentally change the relationship with Israel”, to preserve the purity of the Diaspora where they live, North London or else.
Israeli voters are volatile. The days when an Israeli citizen voted for the same Party, his family voted for, which was also the Party that provided protekzia to find the way through the craziest bureaucracy ever, and which provided medical insurance, and also told which football team to support (Beitar for the Right, Hapoel for the Socialist)… Those days of political tribalism are now over.
Israel’s society is increasingly individualistic. And now, at every election, there is at least one Party of which the media anticipates stunning success in a country where you only need a few thousand votes to be elected to Parliament. These parties always become the third or so for the number of MPs. They are supposed to change the whole political system. And then nothing happens. By the end of the term, these parties have split into two, three, or four factions.
Remember the secularist Shinui in 2003? The United Arab list in 2020? The secular right Yamina in 2021? They are all gone now. Those MPs still in the Knesset have changed Party, often more than once. It may happen that the Far Right — notoriously like a chicken coop of different conflicting factions- does not reach the end of the term as a unified body. Netanyahu has a talent for instigating divisions among his allies — divide et impera, “divide and rule”, is his motto.
I have the uttermost respect for everyone’s concerns and insecurities, including those of the Smurfs. But I see, even me and from here, more than a silver lining and no reason to give up our support for Israel and the Zionist project.
We must be part of the game. We must be vigilant over what happens and defend our rights as Reform Jews and Jews tout court. Menachem Begin did not give up the Zionist ideals and remained an active and loud presence in Israeli politics for decades while his Socialist foes were in power. They targeted him in every possible way and worked hard to destroy his reputation and the support he had from the working class. Until one day in 1977, the voters gave Begin the leadership role he deserved. And peace with Egypt came (from a man of the Right!)
Israel is incredibly safer now than it was those days. Those Jews for which democracy and the rule of law are not just words but values, and Jewish values!, — must take inspiration from Menachem Begin. Let me use that word from his resilience, perseverance and commitment to democracy.
Don’t listen to the smurfs. The Fascist won’t last.
Am Yisrael Chai.