Last Sunday night the Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman submitted to a Q&A after a showing of The Time That Remains, his latest feature, at Columbia. (If you’ve not seen it yet: do.) The first question was a classic: ‘Have Israelis seen this film? What did they think?’ The answer was more so. (Tone: utterly gracious.) “It is amazing that, even with what is happening in Egypt, the first thing we have to do is to ask the Israelis what they think. Whether they are scared. Whether they are terrified. Whether they are crapping in their pants.”
I felt a paper coming on. ‘“Crapping In Their Pants”: Israeli Responses to Democracy in Egypt.’ For MESA, perhaps; integrating some theory – “Crapping In the Pants of Zionism”? Then I realized that, like I trust most of those reading this, ever since January 25th I’d outright refused to read anything Israeli on Egypt; or on anything else, for that matter. The tabs sat unread on my screen for days – and then I closed them to make room for more from Tahrir. For the first time in years my Haaretz Op/Ed RSS feed shot up into the hundreds. Long may it remain there.
Out of what masochism could one tear one’s eyes away from Al-Jazeera for even a moment to inflict the Israeli commentariat on oneself at a time like this – rather than, say, Jadaliyya, or photos of the martyrs, or the Wael Ghonim interview, or, or, or? Nothing that Israel could do or say could take away from this. No amount of pleasure at its squirming could compete with the pleasure of a minute of Azmi Bishara. For once, oh happy once, it was they that did not exist. To “get out of our land / Our continent, our sea / Our wheat, our salt, our sore / Our everything, and get out / Of the memory of memories,” one could feel justified for once in adding “Get off our screens.” And act on it.
But, with Mubarak gone, I couldn’t resist. Following the vertiginous grotesqueries of Israeli discourse would be my day job, if I didn’t have another, and had had to give up in recent months as they came too thick, too fast, too hard any longer to tell the real thing from satire. So here, dear readers, is a sampling of what I hope for your sake you missed, most of it brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood toilet paper, Yediot Aharonot – ‘The Latest in Fascism.’ Not to worry: it doesn’t matter; and, now a little sooner than later, nor will it matter what these ‘thinkers’ write. This is an interactive piece: if you’ve put yourself through similar or worse, please share in the comments below. Donations to restore my mental health to Jadaliyya, please.
Let’s begin, though, with one Yossi Klein Halevi in the New York Times, February 1st. His blurb doesn’t let on that he’s Israeli; but then again, nor does the Times tell us in their every single piece that both its Jerusalem correspondents are married to Israelis, as really it should. Yossi’s title? “Israel, Alone Again?” (The Times webpage reads “Islamists at the Gates.”) This marvel begins: “ISRAELIS [thank you, O Times, for the inadvertently sarcastic capitalization] want to rejoice over the outbreak of protests in Egypt’s city squares. They want to believe that this is the Arab world’s 1989 moment. Perhaps, they say, the poisonous reflex of blaming the Jewish state for the Middle East’s ills will be replaced by an honest self-assessment. But few Israelis really believe in that hopeful outcome. Instead, the grim assumption is that it is just a matter of time before the only real opposition group in Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, takes power. Israelis fear that Egypt will go the way of Iran or Turkey, with Islamists gaining control through violence or gradual co-optation.” I had to scratch my head awhile to remember that, yes, this would be a reference to the “gradual co-optation” formerly known as Turkish elections.
But on to one Smadar Peri, whose biography Yediot sadly does not see fit to share with us. January 26th, title: “Egypt is not Tunisia”: “On Tuesday it indeed looked scary. Tens of thousands of protestors poured into Egypt’s streets at once. [Scary!] When the situation calms down and the streets empty, those who provoked the “day of fury” will be taken care of. [We just called Omar Suleiman to make sure.] It was also interesting to see that the curses hurled at the president Tuesday did not mention even once the name of his heir apparent, Mubarak’s son Gamal. This too attests to the limited scope of the confrontation.” Who knew Nile TV was the channel of choice in Israel?
Itamar Eichner, January 30th, title – you guessed it – “Israel Left All Alone.” (Where Israel is concerned, clichéd vulgarity will never walk alone.) His throat-clearing: “The uprising in Egypt reinforces Israel’s strategic distress in the Middle East: We’re alone, without any allies . . . Now, the riots [riots!] in Egypt raise fears that the Palestinian people will also develop an appetite for destruction [tagline: “January 25th: Appetite For Destruction”] and hit the streets in the aims of toppling their corrupt government.” Allah yestor.
Hillel Frisch, January 31st, ostensibly a ‘researcher’ at the ‘Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies’ at Bar-Ilan University. Headline: “The Egypt Disaster; Fateful Uprising.” “Here’s a great point of comfort: How wonderful, retrospectively, that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not give up our control in Judea and Samaria and did not divide Jerusalem.”
Mira Tzoreff, February 2nd; not so amazingly, a lecturer at the Tel Aviv University Dayan Center; presumably on the BA (Hons) in Fascism. “Egypt Autocracy To Remain; The Day After”; subheadline: “Suleiman’s rise in Cairo will be good for Israel, create welcomed continuity in Egypt.” Begins: “When a group of young people fights for its civil rights and points an accusing finger at the regime, this is a positive step and an unprecedented historical moment. President Hosni Mubarak complied with the demands made by the masses [bless him! Yediot and Al-Sharq al-Awsat hand in hand – the latter chose to headline January 31st: “And Mubarak Responded to the Demands of the People . . . ”] and proceeded to change his government. Given the steps he has adopted since Friday, the leading figure slated to succeed him is the newly appointed deputy minister [that would be . . . Vice-President] (and successor according to the constitution) [that would be . . . wrong; but whoever said the Dayan Center involved actual research?] Omar Suleiman. This is an optimistic point for Israel, which will create welcomed continuity without toppling the entire regime. At the end of the day, the system of government in Egypt will not be changing – it will remain an autocracy, but a softer, more flexible one. Credit Egypt’s young people. The credit for the apparent government change ahead should be given to the young people of Egypt.” Thank you, Mira, so much; they appreciate it.
Ariel Harkham, February 3rd: “Egypt’s Pyramid Scheme.” (The joke is the tagline: “Uprising Analysis.”) “In the land of the pyramids, where the greatest Ponzi scheme ever orchestrated is being unmasked in front of our eyes, the irony is unmistakable. And the biggest victims in this scheme`s collapse are America and Israel.” Those would be the biggest victims, yes. Not the martyrs, beginning with Khaled Said. Oh no.
By February 4th, we’d got to Sima Kadmon: ‘The American Betrayal – Mubarak’s Downfall”: “there is one more thing we can learn from the events in Egypt, aside from the fragility of the region we inhabit, and it is something that’s not easy to digest: The Western world’s and mostly America’s treachery.” You read that right. January 25th: Lessons Learned: America’s treachery. To Israel.
(Sadly the translator of this piece by Haaretz’s Benny Ziffer seems to have failed to note it was, as is Ziffer’s wont, exclusively sarcastic; but given the Israeli papers’ usual standards, and the cognitive dissonance involved in reading the sort of thing above straight, you can hardly blame her.)
Consulting Yediot for wisdom after Mubarak’s third ‘speech’, February 11th, one found one Guy Bechor headlining: “The Experts Got It Wrong.” “Egypt doesn’t like disorder. It is a vast civilization, which for 5,000 years now had been ruled as a formidable power pyramid; its domestic genetic code stresses “social order” and revulsion in the face of anarchy, and at the end of the day the regime managed to regain its legitimacy. With a great degree of accuracy, the regime portrayed itself as the obstacle in the face of chaos, Hezbollah or al-Qaeda terror, or violent political Islam.” Or as Bechor’s ghost writer Omar Suleiman had phrased the same four choices to Christiane Amanpour: Brother Muslimhood, Brother Muslimhood; Brother Muslimhood; Brother Muslimhood. Brother Muslimhood.
I leave you though with the Times’ ever-reliable Roger Cohen, February 7th. “CAIRO — The core issue in Egypt can be boiled down to this: are we witnessing Tehran 1979 or Berlin 1989? . . . The United States – Iraq-sobered, Gaza-burned [isn’t it Gaza that gets, well, Gaza-burned?]. . . we’d like to see an Arab 1989 but we’ve been hurt too often not to glimpse Iran 1979 [Nebechdikker Shimshon!] . . . There’s a second reason for Israel to find hope in Tahrir Square: it is precisely individuals who feel their existence has no meaning – the heart of the Arab condition [which, as the last days have demonstrated, has nothing, repeat, nothing, to do with Israel] – who are most prone to subsume their identity in the all-resolving jihadist death wish . . . As for Netanyahu, he should emulate Sadat and head for Cairo to embrace Egypt’s democratically-elected next president.” Can you see a democratically-elected Egyptian president embracing Netanyahu? Can you?
Coda: “German diplomats said yesterday that grave concerns about developments in Egypt were raised in all meetings with their Israeli counterparts. "It sounds like the Israelis are terrified of what may happen in Egypt," one German diplomat said.”
“Terrified.” Or, in the original German, crapping. In their. Pants.