Indoctrinated teenagers are the new government’s greatest assets

It seems as if every day the government presents us with a new fascist policy that crosses a line. Another line after another, day after day. Everyone is outraged, even voters who previously sat comfortably in their homes are taking to the streets. But all this public fury comes much too late. I say that because, for the past decades, governments of apparently every political ideology continued the same cycles of violence, using the army’s strength. 

Because of this, my classes in high school about the theoretical background of the Israeli political system seem especially odd. We talk about democracy, the judicial system, and more outside the contemporary context. 

Pure theory in a pure void – An idealistic approach that would exist in an ideological and systemic utopia. We learn about the romantic basis which gave foundation to the political climate. We learn all this without mentioning the fact that tomorrow it will all be for nothing, because Bibi, with a snap of his finger, can change the legal reality of this country. 

Finally, “Jewish and democratic” means even less, to fewer people than ever before. An ideal that never meant anything except pretending to care about the lives of non-Jewish people. Finally, the pretending is over – except in the classroom. While there are always a few students who understand that declaring Israel the nation-state of the Jewish people was a move crafted for Arabs in the country to feel even less of a part of the state, there’s always a student who insists that we do indeed should prefer Jews here. 

As long as we’re not the group that is being discriminated against – it’s fine. And there’s only a minority of the oppressing majority that is ready to defend the ones that are hurting. 

For the first time, a country is turning to a theocracy and Jews are not the first to feel its terrible effects. Because this time, Israeli Jews are being the perpetrators. Except that while Jews are not the first on the list, they do appear on it. Maybe not everyone, but yes, a significant majority. Women and seculars will be hurt. And that’s the reason people are taking to the streets. 

This is all because the majority is hurting. 

Even before the election, Israeli Jews would’ve had many reasons to protest, for example, the occupation their dear country is perpetrating. But no, of course not. 

That would be much too woke for the average Israeli. 

So while adults are at least out in the streets protesting for their rights, their children are still in class, learning propaganda – not a way to recognize it, but a way to spread it. 

And that is the government’s greatest asset – hundreds of thousands of loyal soldiers to fight the enemy or in this government’s case – the made-up, fictional enemy. A naive reader could very well say, well, kids are curious, and I’m sure they would want to know things about the world they aren’t taught in school. I wish that were the case, but the kids I go to school with are among the least hungry for knowledge. They are, in fact, full of propaganda which their brains mistake for knowledge.

And this is not a system bringing up children with critical thinking skills – it’s one that’s teaching the exact opposite. Easy facts, easy propaganda, and the loss of conscience.