Howard Epstein – Letter From Israel July 2021
Having written this Letter for over two months with barely, if ever, a remark about my adoptive country that was less than flattering, not to say adulatory, my final comment last week was that I would remove my rose-tinted glasses and report on the issues of concern for Israelis. Yet, I found it not so easy a task as I had imagined. After scouring the (English language) Israeli press for bad news on the domestic front, and coming up with very little, I turned for assistance to my Israeli Sabra wife.
“What are Israelis concerned about?” she snorted. “What are Israelis not concerned about?”
Nevertheless, progress was slow but, eventually, there emerged a short list. This was not a short list derived from a long list, you understand. It was a stand-alone short list.
First up was shame at the rowdy, base and appalling behaviour of certain lawmakers in the Knesset. The cut and thrust of debate at Westminster, the cheering and the jeering there, amount to no more than the teddy bears’ picnic as compared with the ructions in the Knesset, particularly recently, as King Bibi was prised from the Prime Minister’s Office he has occupied for the past dozen years. The tone of aggressive dismissal of those with whom Knesset members do not agree may have been set around 1949, but in a quiet way, by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, who refused ever to acknowledge Menachem Begin, and certainly he never referred to him by name. Contempt for one’s political opponents has long been quite normal here.
“Anything else?” I begged, “I have a column to write on this.”
“The cost of living!” Here was something I could relate to. The cost of a given food basket in an Israeli supermarket as compared with the same in your typical UK food emporium has hair[1]raising abilities. (No one has yet worked out how Israeli families cope with the cost of living.)
The complaints were coming thick and fast now. “The corruption: of the former prime minister, civil servants and the police.” (All allegedly, of course.) If there is doubt that corruption is widespread, why would there be so few successful prosecutions for bribery and fraud? (This is not peculiar to Israel. Ask the Serious Fraud Office in London. Successful prosecutions in serious fraud cases are almost as rare as ducks’ teeth.)
“OK,” defiantly now, “the unemployed, the Haredim who refuse to work, the risks of going into the forests alone (too many of our people have been murdered by terrorists when merely enjoying nature alone), the violence endemic in society. Enough for you?” Then came the coup de grâce.
THE POOR!
It is all very well for Dvarim (Deuteronomy) 15:11 to tell us that the poor will always be with us but poverty has become today, in Eretz Yisrael, the most important bad news story. Israel is an outstandingly successful and wealthy country yet, shamefully, nearly two million Israelis, 23% of the population, live below the poverty line. It is a blot on our record that so many of our people suffer scarcity and despair. After twelve years of advancement of the country, the premiership of Netanyahu stands accused of an abject moral failure to assist the country’s poor. Indeed, the fault is not his alone, for there has been little sign of aspirant politicians seeking election on a platform of improving the lot of the poor.
So, finally, the rose-tinted glasses lie on the floor in pieces, in shards and splinters. The Jewish State needs to find its Jewish conscience and start caring a little less about the multi-billion dollar funding rounds, the miracle weapons and the astonishing medical breakthroughs, and caring a little more – no, a lot more – about the disadvantaged. Here is something on which the left-wing and the right-wing media could agree. They should launch a common campaign to encourage the new government to make more welfare available, and to provide greater opportunities for development to the weakest members of society.
One can live in hope. One could write to the new president, the generally-admired Chaim Herzog, and ask him to back such a campaign. In fact, I just did and I’ll let you know how I get on.
© JULY 2021 HOWARD EPSTEIN
