Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Bibi's 'exercise in survival' Posted by Gil Troy

Bibi's 'exercise in survival' Posted by Gil Troy
http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/troy/entry/netanyahu_s_exercise_in_survival
The storm in Israel and around the world kicked up by Prime Minister 
Benjamin Netanyahu's Heritage Program is doubly unfortunate. It distorts 
Israeli politics, perceiving everything through the Israeli-Palestinian 
lens. It also clouds an important shift; finally, our leaders are 
addressing this country's values crisis and the need to build a strong 
Zionist identity among young Jews both here and abroad.
Last Sunday, Netanyahu took his Cabinet to Tel Hai, the Upper Galilee 
settlement where the early Zionist hero Joseph Trumpeldor died defending 
what became Israel's north. Mortally wounded in 1920, Trumpeldor 
supposedly said, "Never mind, it is good to die for our country." Ninety 
years later, Netanyahu returned to Tel Hai to teach young Jews that it 
is even better to live for one's country.
Netanyahu allocated nearly NIS 400 million to rehabilitate 150 
historical sites, both ancient and modern, which tell the story of 
Israel and modern Zionism. The next day, Netanyahu explained to the 
Jewish Agency's Board of Governors: "We're just presenting the facts... 
the actual facts of the growth of Zionism, the return of the Jews...."
Building on the success of Birthright Israel and the MASA programs, 
Netanyahu wants young Jews, from Israel and abroad, to "actually walk 
this land - walk it, sense it, feel it, study about it, learn it 
directly - [as] we say in the army, 'through the boots' - through the 
boots but also through your eyes, through your brain and through your 
heart, to learn about our heritage and to make that heritage part of the 
foundation of our future."
Logically, in offering a triptych of Jewish history, Netanyahu included 
Rachel's Tomb, near Bethlehem, and Me'arat HaMachpelah, the Tomb of the 
Patriarchs, in Hebron. Alas, anger over improving those two West Bank 
sites upstaged the necessary discussion regarding the remaining 148. 
Israeli leftists, Palestinians and the Obama administration denounced 
Netanyahu for including those sites. The attacks perpetuated the late 
terrorist Yasser Arafat's classic conceit, trying to make everything 
about Israel about him and the Palestinians. And once again, the alleged 
pro-peace camp missed an opportunity to push talks about the territories 
to a more realistic plane.
The Israeli left made a mistake of historic proportions - paralleling 
its failure to ensure that every settler displaced from Gaza in 2005 was 
welcomed back to Israel within the Green Line smoothly, efficiently and 
warmly. The traditional burial places of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, 
Rebecca, Leah and Rachel are as essential to Jewish history as George 
Washington's Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello are to 
American history. Negating that fact negates Jewish history and offends 
Jewish sensibilities.
No one should seek territorial compromise by diminishing the value of 
these and other sites to Jews. The compelling pro-compromise argument 
should be: "Yes, Hebron is one of our holiest cities. Yes, the Tomb of 
the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb are precious to us. But yes, 
nevertheless we are willing to give those up for peace." Pretending they 
have no value distorts history and cheapens the compromise the left 
claims to champion.
Moreover, in making the Heritage Program another Israeli-Palestinian 
flashpoint, the Israeli left once again self-destructively risks making 
patriotism, Zionism and Jewish identity right-wing issues rather than 
common concerns of the Jewish people. During their successful 
presidential campaigns, Bill Clinton in 1992 and Barack Obama in 2008 
refused to concede family, flag and faith to Republicans. In a powerful 
Independence Day speech at Harry Truman's hometown of Independence, 
Missouri, Obama described his "deep and abiding love" for America, 
insisting "there's nothing smart or sophisticated about a cynical 
disregard for America's traditions and institutions."
Israeli governments, right and left, should have launched a Heritage 
Program long ago. In Israel, and abroad, too, many young Jews are 
seduced by the siren song of modernity, by the lure of "I" over "us", 
"now" over "then", the fleeting over the eternal. Modern life makes many 
humans feel like random atoms floating around rather than complex 
molecules bonding together - more grounded, effective and powerful. With 
social ties diminished, social capital plummets. The result is an 
identity crisis, a values crisis, addiction to the Internet, growing 
violence and sexual abuse, family breakdown and epidemics of immorality, 
cynicism, materialism and selfishness.
It is no coincidence that the moral crisis for Jews in the modern world, 
our mass meaning crisis today, follows the mass abandonment of Jewish 
tradition, values, rituals and structures. We have created a "whatever" 
culture, a "why bother" society, generations of Jewish pagans addicted 
to the me-me-me, my-my-my, more-more-more, now-now-now shopping and 
leisure imperatives. And despite our many blessings of freedom, comfort, 
safety, prosperity and serenity, medical breakthroughs and 
enlightenment, we must acknowledge the mass social wreckage modernity 
has wrought, the many broken souls, the many derailed lives, all our 
goodies, all our indulgences somehow produce.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is right to root young Jews in our history, our 
community, our dreams. Similarly, Minister for Diaspora Affairs and 
Public Diplomacy Yuli Edelstein should be applauded for offering to 
train Israelis traveling abroad how to fight the growing push to 
delegitimize Israel. A sense of responsibility fosters a sense of 
community. And Netanyahu's appointee to the Jewish Agency for Israel, 
Natan Sharansky, should be praised for trying to revitalize that 
organization around an identity agenda.
In his Soviet prison, Sharansky discovered that Jews and Pentacostalists 
who belonged to a community and a larger narrative found it easier to 
stay true to themselves and defy the KGB. We must define what Jewish 
identity means in the 21st century while cultivating mass pride of 
membership in our historic enterprise, the Jewish people.
Netanyahu called his Heritage Program "not merely an exercise in 
education," but "an exercise in survival." We can find salvation in more 
Jewish education because Jewish education is not just about learning the 
facts but mastering life. Jewish education is not just about thinking, 
but also about doing. Jewish education is not just about understanding 
the world but also fixing it - Tikun Olam. Jewish education is not just 
about skill-building but identity-building.
In short, Jewish education is values education - and that is the added 
value Jews need, both young and old. Treat these Heritage sites as 
invaluable Jewish educational tools not political hot potatoes.
Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University on leave in 
Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish 
Identity and the Challenges of Today. His latest book The Reagan 
Revolution:  A Very Short Introduction, was recently published by Oxford 
University Press

 its failure to ensure that every settler displaced from Gaza in 2005
va bene che per un self hater ex comunista come te la sinistra per il
solo fatto che esiste è colpevole di tutti i mali presenti, passati e
futuri dell'intera umanità, ma il PM di allora non era SHaron? (a
proposito, ma devono aspettare che assuma l'aspetto fisico di un
sopravvissuto ai lager prima di staccare la spina?
http://www.theage.com.au/world/sharon-will-never-recover-doctors-20100105-ls9c.html
)

 sopravvissuto ai lager prima di staccare la spina?
L'inferno si sconta qui sulla terra e Sharon ha una pena lunga..... lunga
vita 
a Sharon cos� com'�!
-- 
gus
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