We'd rather talk about cottage cheese than peace or occupation
Written above this photo on Lehava’s web-page: “Citizens of Ashdod are also standing with LEHAVA. Waiting for Gaza to be turned into a big blaze!” It received more than 2,300 “likes” in just two days. A post published later that the same day gives what it said were words for a protest chant: “Gaza, Gaza a graveyard! Very soon!” It received more than six hundred “likes.” Lehava is a far-right Israeli organization whose primary objective is stopping ‘their’ Jewish women marrying Arab men.
Why Israelis don’t talk about peace
Three years after Israel’s social protest movement studiously avoided talking about Palestinians and human rights in favor of demanding cheaper cottage cheese, talking peace is still considered divisive.
By Jessica Apple, Haaretz
July 15, 2014
Cottage cheese is important to Israelis. It’s easy to understand why. You can have it for any meal of the day, or as a snack. It’s nicely salted, filling, low carb, rich in calcium, high in protein, and packaged in a cute little container that’s easy to carry down to the bomb shelter if a siren happens to interrupt your meal.
Sadly, cottage cheese is not lactose-free. For those of us who have a hard time with dairy, it makes living in Israel difficult. But there’s always hope that things will change. Maybe I will start a movement, like Israel’s social justice movement from 2011, and demand that my cottage cheese be not only affordable, but lactose-free. This is something the Israeli middle class will understand. Perhaps I will start a Facebook page and get 100,000 people to support my right to digestible cheese.
Remember how happy everyone was three summers ago when we demanded cheaper housing (and fairly priced cheese)? My son learned to ride his bike on a Tel Aviv boulevard lined with tents. Young people poked their heads out to cheer him on. The neighborhood homeless had plenty of food and company. So did the elderly sitting on benches with their Filipino caregivers. I was happy, too, because my son had – after many failed attempts – finally learned to ride his bike.
I could watch him going back and forth while I talked to young people who weren’t apathetic. They were raising their voices about the high cost of living in Israel because that was something they could get behind.
“Why isn’t anyone talking about peace?” I asked.
“We can’t talk about peace,” was always the answer. “Peace upsets people. The center-right may not join us in our protests if we bring up peace. Anyway, this is about social justice.”
All we are saying is give cheese a chance.
“How can we talk about social justice – or any kind of justice – while occupying another people?” I argued.
But who wants to think about Palestinians and human rights when you can stand in line at the supermarket, infuriated about the cost of your cottage cheese? I, too, am infuriated. I’ve had three years since the social justice movement’s debut to demand lactose-free cottage cheese, but I’ve done very little. And now with the missiles coming at us, people rarely talk about cheese. We continue to feed it to our children, though, so they can grow big and strong, join the army, and defend us in the fifth, sixth and seventh intifadas.
Maybe I will start a Facebook page demanding better dairy. But even with 100,000 supporting me on Facebook, in the middle of this fighting, I don’t know who will join me in the boulevard to demonstrate for my cheese. Our tents don’t have bomb shelters, so this is another thing we should demand of our government: Better housing with better shelters. In time, the Palestinians will get more sophisticated weapons and we will need more protection.
Peace, whose discussion splinters our society, is too upsetting to demand. An Iron Dome on the top of each building, however, so no Israeli shall ever be disturbed by missiles while eating cottage cheese, is a particularly good idea. Because this is something all Israelis can get behind – left, right, secular, ultra-Orthodox, settlers. We all just want to eat our fairly priced cheese in peace.
Jessica Apple is a writer in Tel Aviv. She is the editor of diabetes magazine ASweetLife.org and cofounder of the nonprofit Diabetes Media Foundation.
The shame of an Israel dripping with venom
A new protest is forming, and not just against the occupation. It’s against the racism that’s erupting everywhere.
By Uzi Baram, Haaretz
July 14, 2014
The tension is affecting us all, regardless of our political opinions. When the bombing of Gaza and the rocket fire at Israel cease, the question will be asked once again – did the terrible destruction wreaked on Gaza change the rules of the game? What are those rules? A cease-fire for a year or two? A budding insurrection against Hamas in the Strip? No one can tell.
What’s clear to me is that the past two months can’t be ignored as if they didn’t happen. We should be ashamed of an Israel dripping with venom toward the other, an Israel that easily moves on after the Facebook comments about the burning to death of an Arab boy.
I tried to think up a response to these questions, even a partial one, involving a wider opposition, an enhanced Jewish-Arab solidarity. I was told I had to wait because the entire country was anxiously waiting to learn about the fate of the three kidnapped teenagers.
When their bodies were found I was told the pain would make any protest seem pathetic. Then came the military operation with its bombastic name and unattainable goals, during which real or phony patriotism extinguished every other aspect of Israel.
Suddenly, however, came articles by young writers expressing shame and scorn about the Internet comments by paid hacks or volunteers. There was a feeling that something was brewing.
The 2011 social protests revolved around one issue: the way of life of Israel’s productive sectors – young people who won’t ever be able to afford housing or enjoy a secure pension. So when the match was lit it showed the way for many people.
The current protest isn’t the usual one of the left protesting the occupation’s evils. It’s one that addresses the country’s basic values and the path it’s following. It’s targeting the racism that’s erupting everywhere, the hatred and disregard shown toward the pain of others.
Many people yearn for a different kind of Israel. The protest won’t succeed through decisions by opposition parties or parties that joined the Netanyahu government and are now straddling the fence. The protest will come from a wider community that’s ashamed of an Israel that has abandoned its democratic goals. These people are ashamed of an archaic, faith-based interpretation of concepts such as Zionism and Judaism.
The slogan “We want a different Israel” could attract tens of thousands of people — or more. Clearly this would be an anti-establishment protest, and some people would try to steer it in totally different directions.
Astute commentators have stated recently that the left no longer exists in Israel. This may be true based on the way these writers define the left and its objectives. Their left is clear and concrete but powerless to attract communities that don’t think the way it does, despite the common revulsion for the new right, for hysterical Economy Minister Naftali Bennett or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who fails to confront the filth. In every corner one can sense anger, fury and shame.
“We want a different Israel” can be a rallying cry for Israel’s Arab citizens who, according to opinion polls, seek to integrate into the country’s fabric. When an Israeli cabinet member visits the family of the murdered Arab boy that minister is hit by threats to his family on Facebook, we can’t remain silent. This isn’t the Israel envisioned by its founders, and something needs to be done about it.
In the Haaretz supplement that accompanied the paper’s Israel Conference on Peace, writers seemed divided on the solution. They offered models for attaining peace, but all seemed anachronistic and unfeasible. A nation that desires peace is one that will fight for a different kind of country and society. The new mutation on the extreme right, whose rabbis have contempt for anyone different, demands a clear statement: This shall not pass.