Haven't had a post from Nadine lately.
In Israel, the Vitriol Spreads
The New York Times
August 27, 2006
Reading File
The press in Israel continued to vent its anger at the government last week over the Lebanon war. Under the headline “Storm the Bastille” in the newspaper Haaretz, Gideon Samet wrote of the darkening public mood.
Indeed, Israelis have never excelled at showing discomfort. Despite their reputation for being chaotic and unbridled, they are among the most obedient subjects in the world. Here, there is not even a fraction of the national frenzy that erupts in France over the protection of agricultural produce or university tuition fees. When the riots of the late 1960’s made waves from Europe to America, here we were basking in a military victory, worshiping the government and the generals. ...
The real reason for the revolt that is brewing now is not the war. That is only the excuse. Rather, despair at the way the country is going is beginning to erupt. Both the soldiers of Brigade 551 and its commanders, in a letter to the defense minister (“a feeling of having been spat at in the face”), and the several unknown faces leading the protest are still hesitant in formulating their slogans and demands. But they, and even the chief paratroops and infantry officer, Brig. Gen. Yossi Heiman, who gave an unprecedented speech for a serving officer, are not focusing only on the defense establishment. As in all broad protests, this time, too, just a few sayings, even banal ones, will survive. One of them is that the fish stinks from the head.
‘Battered and Bruised’
On Ynet, the Web site of the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, a writer, Mordechai Gilat, offered little hope for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Ehud Olmert , witnessing the massive protests amassing against him, stuffed his bags with money and flew off to Kiriyat Shmona to distribute it.
He was sure that with his money and promises he would be able to mend the hearts of the country’s northern citizens, but he was wrong. ... They attacked Olmert with all their might; they poured fire and brimstone on him and sent him home battered and bruised.
This experience is an indication of what’s in store for the prime minister in the near future. The protest is now out in the open, the soldiers have a bellyful, the pain of the fallen soldiers’ families is enormous, and questions raised in the not too distant past pertaining to Olmert’s role in the Likud central committee and government related corruption, are now surfacing.
The findings of the second war in Lebanon raise questions as to whether corrupt people are fit to run a country.
Suddenly the public is asking itself in whose hands did it place the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. All of a sudden it is beginning to understand the state comptroller’s warnings, that Israeli corruption poses an existential threat. All of a sudden people are beginning to realize that corruption is corruption is corruption, and that it will inevitably seep into the military as well.
Where Was Tzipi?
On Ynet, Zvi Mazel accused Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of not being better at public relations during the war.
Hezbollah’s media victory, which turned the tables, is the result of aggressive media and propaganda strategies adopted by all the Arab TV stations and which stemmed from its hatred toward Israel. ...
Where was Tzipi when all this was going on? You had the world’s broadcasting studios at your disposal. Everyone was eager to hear what Israel had to say about the war, and you? You hid away in your office or in some other place.
You should have been giving interviews day and night to every possible TV channel in an effort to explain our side of the war, to refute the enemy’s claims, to employ strategies that would be detrimental to the morale of those fighting us. |
