HOWARD EPSTEIN – A PASCAL LETTER FROM ISRAEL
HOWARD EPSTEIN – A PASCAL LETTER FROM ISRAEL
Israel, despite its current leadership, which can be described as being on a spectrum between dysfunctional and toxic, continues to amaze and inspire.
Spending Pesach, and several days before the seder, in Eretz Yisrael afforded me the opportunity to imbibe the energetic spirit of amcha – the Israelis on and off the Kaplan Street omnibus. They are calmly philosophical, in between massive but non-violent street demonstrations: for “this too shall pass” read “sof, sof, hacol yihiye b’seder” (in the end, it’ll all be OK). “We might have to wait for this government to fall, or for Gantz and Lapid to supplant the extreme right wing, but sooner or later it will happen, and, in the meantime, we’ll continue to work hard and play harder.”
A conversation with a redoubtable and highly-respected Israeli lawyer put me right on the proposed judicial reforms: some changes have been due for many years. Justice delayed is justice denied, and many of his clients have suffered the deficit, while disputes arising in Judaea and Samaria (where, outside the Jewish settlements, military and some Jordanian law applies) have clogged up the system. That the reforms passed or threatened in the Knesset should not extend to favours, such as get-out-of-jail-free cards or non-disclosable gifts to ministers, was common ground between us.
There is, however, amongst ordinary Israelis with offspring in the IDF, no doubt about collapsing morale in the military, and no one wants to see Yoav Gallant actually depart the defense ministry from which he has been formally but ineffectually fired; but it is also tacitly understood, not least by Hamas and Hezbollah (check out the increasing attrition rate visited on them) that nothing brings Israelis together faster than Gazan missiles, Iranian drones, Palestinian terrorism, and random threats of violence against the Jewish people.
Whilst there will not be unalloyed joy over Yom Hatzma’ut (Independence Day), falling on 5th Iyar (25-26 April), celebrations there will be, for Israelis need nothing more than a hint to party. Indeed, in the latest iteration of the global Happiness Index, Israel had moved in a year from eleventh place to fourth, a reading that was taken before the new government provoked three months of street demonstrations, a flight of capital, censure from every sector of society, a continuing fall in value of the shekel – and the backbone of the military refusing to show up for essential training sessions.
This time next year, the country might be back to eleventh place or worse – or mispar echad, depending on how quickly the government recognises its moral bankruptcy.
On a more mundane level, erev chag, after some eight million of our brethren had vigorously stocked up for a week’s serious eating, the supermarkets’ shelves could barely contain the vast range and quantities of fresh and other produce held in stock for the topping up onslaught next Sunday.
Energy prices are up, but not to the point where large numbers of people find them unaffordable, nor is a theatre ticket the equivalent of the £150 of which David Jacobi complained last week.
The Maccabi health fund for one (of four that compete to treat the nation’s ill health) is as efficient as one could wish, with access to GPs and specialists ranging from immediate to soon; although the hospitals are falling behind their previous delivery standards, whilst not being as yet in as desperate a condition as the NHS (according to the UK press).
Now, I return to the issue of judicial reform. An emerging concern is that the International Criminal Court’s apparent acceptance of the independence and objectivity of the Israeli courts is at risk. If the government’s current course is followed, members and former members of the IDF will be at risk of prosecution outside Israel for alleged war crimes.
We shall see whether a certain prime minister is too uncaring or egocentric to worry himself about what might happen to the children of “ordinary” Israelis. Apart from the feathering of nests and the legislated pardons that are on the stocks, this (along with the ills I listed above) is a real fear that would be a constraint for a leader of good faith and goodwill. Constraint, restraint, reasonableness and decorous conduct, the qualities seen on Israel’s streets and in its offices, universities, cafés, and restaurants, should be introduced to the government so that it is worthy of the trust that Israeli democracy invested in it.
Finally, leading Israeli journalist, Ilana Dayan, said on the “Unholy” podcast last week, that once the noxious anti-democracy genie has escaped from the bottle it is a devil of a job to get it back in – and Israeli democracy may already have passed the point of no return. Let us hope that for once she is wrong.
© April 2023 – Howard Epstein
