Israel’s catastrophes are 100% human-made

Earthquakes, heat domes and early wildfires. While the rest of the world is coping with epic natural disasters, here in Israel the catastrophes are 100% human-made. The past week’s hot legislative avalanche felt seismic and anticlimactic all at once. The Knesset rushed through a slew of new antidemocratic laws with unprecedented abandon and a large helping of cynicism. The courts put down all of their well-shod feet. If it was an avalanche, the cavalry – even in its depleted state – was prepared to push back the flow.

We feel like survivors, climbing out of the wreck of our county, working through our shock at the boldfaced temerity of our lawmakers, who both exempted, unconditionally, a whole group of able-bodied young people from army service and, in the next day’s vote, extended the term of those who do serve. Who voted to allow the segregation of classrooms by gender and tried to institute a crackdown on our right to free press.

There are some who insist the whole endeavor was less wildfire, more smoke screen. The twisted logic goes like this: the laws (which would be unconstitutional if we had such a thing as a constitution) pass; the courts strike them down; but, in the meantime, Bibi has made a deal that firmly binds the ultra-Orthodox parties to the Likud in the upcoming elections. This logic says that the Likud can afford to flip off its own electorate, many of whom make up the ranks of active reservists and their families, because only the ultra-Orthodox are king-makers (language intentionally sexist). Without them, it is all but impossible to form a coalition.

The rest of the logic goes like this: once the Likud and their cronies are back in power, they can further chip away at our democracy, especially the authority of the courts, and then they will be able to cement the raft of flimsy new laws into place (and, in the process, grant themselves permanent immunity for their crimes).

Is this an evil plot to further institute religious practice for all, another blithe step toward dictatorship, or is it, to use one of my favorite terms from the past year, a “miscalculation?”

Certainly, the video of Bibi being ushered out of the Knesset floor before the first vote, shown again and again (at least in the media that is still somewhat independent), would seem to signal a sort of defeat in the face of victory that could have consequences in the polls. Still, I imagine they would have to show that clip every day for the next three months for it to have a real effect.

We cannot heave a sigh of relief that this particular Knesset is closed for business until the elections. There is too much damage, too much to rectify, too much work to be done as we can begin to dig ourselves out of this mess.

And here, I must say, that, like the tipping point we have passed on Earth – the one which our years of meddling in the atmosphere now produces unwanted climate phenomena – I wonder if we are approaching a tipping point in our electoral process. Because the ultra-Orthodox parties have learned that it is best to be the second-largest block in the Knesset. Once they are indispensable to the coalition, they can extort to their hearts’ content and force legislation that is toxic to the county, but beneficial to the short-term interests of their sector.

I say this because not only do they have one of the highest growth rates in the country, so that in every election they have more voting power, percentage-wise, but they are also the most likely to turn up to the polls and vote in accordance with the dictates of their rabbis. The second highest growth rate goes to the Arab sector; but they are, as a demographic, often the least likely to vote, as they see their rights eroded time after time, and as one Jewish politician after another proclaims his party will not sit with non-Jewish parties in a coalition. Despite their numbers, they are all but certainly unable to compete with the ultra-Orthodox for coalition power, especially in today’s discriminatory climate.

We feel like survivors, beaten, scarred and exhausted by the latest round of assaults on our rights and on our democracy. And like survivors, we – those of us who still hope for peace, equality, justice and yes, democracy, in the county – need not just therapy, but a plan.

Voting is important, but so is ensuring the elections are fair and representative. Our transportation minister, Miri Regev, is already coming up with a plan to prevent Israeli citizens living abroad from coming home to vote. You can be sure the campaigns, designed a la their American counterparts, will be based on lies, bendable truths, and alternative facts, not to mention racism and nationalistic claptrap. (And for the record, “left-wing” is not a dirty word, and should not be used as an insult hurled at the army’s major general, nor at  most of our political leadership.)

We need, to use a somewhat biblical metaphor for another natural disaster, a new flood.

The most recent flood – the one in which hundreds of thousands of Israelis turned out to press for bringing the hostages home – is already nearly forgotten, but that energy and passion will be needed to counter the noxious rule of religion and corruption. Among other things, we need to return, en masse, to the belief that our moral and political sense still matters, that we can, if we all get together and roil the waters a bit, prevail. The disasters may have been of our own collective making, but I still have hope that the recovery from those upheavals is also within reach.