Not really listening

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Years ago, on a trip to Asia, we lay awake in the fishing town of Chau Doc, Vietnam, feeling the effects of the greasy dinner we had eaten; waiting to cross over to Cambodia in the morning. After the intensely early-stage capitalist bustle of Saigon, we were plunged into the Communist backside of the country. A loudspeaker blasting taped diatribes and music played all night long near our guesthouse. We could not understand the words, but the message was clear: We are there even in your dreams.

It was a unique form of torture, I admit, but one I imagined the locals were used to. Like sleeping through rain in Seattle. They did not look sleep-deprived, and when we asked them about the broadcast, they just shrugged.

Insisting on broadcasting his speech in the UN through loudspeakers in Gaza: Bibi’s message is clear. He was not sending his words to the other countries of the world, whose ears were closed, in any case, to his pleas and rants. He was giving his best English talk to a hall that was two-thirds empty. He was not speaking to the Israeli public, whom he prefers to avoid at all costs. He was speaking directly to the people of Gaza, telling them to give up hope. He is coming for them; he intends to haunt their dreams. He’ll haunt their dreams, in the same way that the ravages of Oct. 7 haunt ours.

Here’s the thing: The people he is speaking to are inured. Their dreams have been haunted, the past two years, by Israeli bombs, tanks and sharpshooters. They have seen their homes destroyed, their supplies cut off, their hospitals destroyed, their families killed. They already expect the worst. At most, he is confirming their fears, adding a layer of icing to their nightmares. He comes off as a Jewish Darth Vader, rasping at them through the ether.

Their parents murdered; they are raised by warriors – to hate and kill or run away and beg for mercy. It does not matter to our government. They are all potential victims of our military machine. If Bibi manages to haunt any dreams, it will be as an annoying electronic wheeze, buzzing beneath the noise of the destruction they have already witnessed and heard.

In the hard light of day, the narrative crumbles

It does not matter how Bibi talks, disingenuously, of QR codes, hostages and Al Qaeda, or threatens, cajoles and whines. It will be later, in the depths of the White House, that Trump will reveal to him: Bibi, I am your father.

It will further be revealed that Daddy Trump has longed for nothing so much as a piece of gold from Oslo, and the gold pieces that will fall in his lap, along with the gleaming medal. And, according to the plot in the first of many sequels, Bibi will be key to realizing that dream.

Of course, they did not call the series “Star Peace Negotiations.”

In the hard light of day, the narrative crumbles. Bibi heads a country that has lost its way, an army that obeys orders under duress, a populace that wants peace, a war that has slid down a very slippery slope from a just war of defense into an offensive long-term slog with little justifiable purpose. It is a country increasingly showing the world the jargon of extremism, with threats to reinstate a terrible occupation – one that we’d already paid a steep price in removing. And please don’t bring up the hostages, with your QR codes and lapel pins. They could have all been home by now. Instead, they are used as a pretext for extending the war.

The European countries that call for a Palestinian state have called for one without Hamas. We are not, in fact, at war with the Palestinian Authority, so it does not make much sense to compare them to Al Qaeda after 9/11. We heard the Prime Minister of Indonesia say “Shalom” from the UN podium. Saudi Arabia – another ally in Trump’s plan to gain the gold – is still willing to take relations with us into consideration. Even Qatar, nursing a wound from our reckless adventure on their soil, has not slammed the door shut. And yet, with the logic of a space opera, Bibi refuses their advances, preferring to stick to his irrational agenda, which is never fully explained. Truth and justice have had their lip service. But in the end, the masks come off, revealing naked greed, fear and loathing, lust for power and simple ugly disrespect for human life.

Still, the plot rests not so much on the words spoken before the world, but the arms twisted away from cameras in a well-appointed office. Which is why we have all learned not to listen to the lies broadcast over loudspeakers. They convince exactly no one. It is time, Bibi, that we stop listening to your voice, and that you listen to ours, instead. Our message is simple, clear and loud: End the war.