meanwhile, in israel…

with the flotilla imbroglio (or fiasco, if you prefer) in full swing, yours truly has just arrived back from the zionist entity, where numerous representatives of clan bananabrain continue to live as normal a life as one might expect in what hussein shobokshi of asharq al-awsat describes as “a state established on a lie based on a myth” – and he was chosen as one of the “global leaders for tomorrow” by the world economic forum in 1995, so 15 years later he must be therefore a global leader and not at all the sort of bloke to make wild accusations about a massacre of 60 people (oh, hang on, what am i saying?). i’ll write separately about the flotilla stuff when i have a moment, but i thought it might be interesting to put up a few insights that i think you’ll find interesting, based as they are on a visit on a ground and interacting with normal, sensible [well, members of my family at any rate], well-educated israelis as well as a range of other social observations.

the thing that struck me initially, from the moment i got to the airport for our easyjet flight, was the other-worldliness of our ultra-orthodox fellow-travellers. now, the thing is, we live in a strictly orthodox community at least in part and know a lot of people with black hats, large beards, modest wigs and a mediaeval approach to family planning and, for the most part, they’re really just like everyone else. these guys on the plane, though – they’re really, really not fun to be around. mrs bb had some words with one who pushed in front of the buggy with mini-banana #2 in it and he looked at her like she was from outer space. she was clearly a respectable married woman, modestly dressed (at least by most people’s standards, even if she wasn’t covering her hair) and travelling with a skullcap-wearing husband. casual interaction with these people doesn’t appear to reveal that they have learned any of the laws of deportment, behaviour or politeness – and, yes, there are plenty of these in the halakhah. next thing, we sat down next to another who was quietly studying talmud, and rocking his daughter in her buggy. he’d seen the whole thing and said quietly to us “people just don’t know how to behave these days”. it was nice to be reassured that appearances aren’t everything.

this initial impression i got of the total fracture of israeli society along religious lines was only reinforced throughout my stay. bernard lewis famously described it as split down the middle between the “jews of christendom” and the “jews of islam”, which, largely speaking, remains true: the “christian” jews – i.e. mostly ashkenazi, from europe, north and south america and the british commonwealth, split into multiple ideologically-driven subgroups covering the spectrum from militant secularism to religious fanaticism, each with its own microclimate. the “islamic” jews, from the middle east, africa and south/central asia, whose relationships are more tribal, more ethnically based, and a traditional approach to religion that embraces all levels of observance – their relationships with each other and the islamic world based more on empirical and family experience than ideological principle. both “christian” and “islamic” jews can be pragmatic or stubbornly bloody-minded, depending on circumstance.

however, the real change i see in the society is from the russians – jews (mostly) of neither european christendom nor the islamic world, but fundamentally different to both; for the most part as hostile to religion as only people brought up under communism can be, with the attitude to ethnicity and human rights that brought us the siege of grozny and the ascendancy of vladimir putin; they understand the law of the jungle, but for all this, their very lack of religious scruples brings its own pragmatism. not to mention, of course, israel’s significant population of arabs, druze and circassians. this, then, is the israel that has developed since the end of the cold war. the fundamental four-way split is only exacerbated by the political culture, with proportional representation enabling parties to be created around ethnic blocs, religious minorities and political tendencies, the current coalition being comprised of parties which are defensive hawks, ethnic conservatives and free market economists, which is why it looks so right wing to your average guardian reader.

what really struck me, however, is the extent to which religion divides the society. we were initially staying in a hotel in the beach resort of netanya and it astonished me just how hard it was to find a kosher restaurant – and the preponderance of cyrillic menus. we also spent a goodly time staying with mrs bb’s utterly delightful cousins in haifa who are what i’d call “soft” secularists; in other words, they have no problem with religious people as long as nobody gets in their face about it. however, they don’t know the first thing about jewish practice, not even the most basic blessings; even our three-day-a-yearers know more. aside from them living in israel and speaking hebrew, you’d be hard put to tell them apart from, say, your average brazilian. my own cousins are somewhat more traditional, but not much; then again, their parents made aliyah as adults with a jewish education and some of their partners are from traditional or religious families. however, this is the exception rather than the rule. both are relaxed about the religious practice of others, but what really gets their goat is the behaviour of religious people who refuse to participate economically, who they see as cynically exploiting society and the political system.

israelis (particularly in corporate jobs) also work a six-ish-day week, from sunday to friday lunchtime in most cases. if you’re sabbath-observant, this doesn’t leave a great deal of time to do anything else. effectively, this means a significant barrier to socialisation or interaction with the non-sabbath-observant. if i lived in israel, my own practice would effectively remove my social life with anyone who wasn’t within walking distance, or sabbath-observant. in fact, there would be significant pressure to abandon my observance entirely or become more obsessive about it, because there’s no time to actually do anything like take the kids out for the day. it seems to me that this drives a wedge between the religious and secular, leaving little room for the moderately religious and driving polarisation of behaviour. it is easy to see why any religious control over public life causes huge inconvenience to the secular, as well as why secular behaviour clashes so hugely with religious observance (for example, israelis never, ever turn off their phones!)

compared to the gaping rifts in the jewish population, there is comparatively little dislike of arabs. the general abrasiveness of israeli behaviour is observable in the aggressive use of mosque loudspeakers, but certainly in the north (from about haifa up to the lebanese border) there is a sizeable arab population which appears moderately well-integrated into the workforce, if not socially. i didn’t get any attitude from any of the arabs i interacted with, certainly and, if anything, they were friendlier and politer than the jewish israelis (well, that’s family). my cousins don’t have many arab friends, though they appear comfortable working with and employing them. my recently-widowed, english-born uncle is of a different generation, but even he made reference to the integration of arabs in the workforce – they’re not all blue-collar by any means. he volunteers at a major city hospital where the director is an arab, dr masad barhoum - “and”, said my uncle, “good for him”. the sad thing is that the policy of separation from the palestinians has simply resulted in the importation of foreign labour – it’s not unusual to see asian “guest workers” where once you’d have seen palestinians. i think we’re all pretty aware of the effect on the palestinian economy, but the israeli economy simply sources its labour elsewhere. this is the result of the bombings and terror; fifteen years ago, it simply wasn’t the case. this is why economic co-operation must at some point resume, at which point the wall will have to come down.

the matzav – the “situation” – is clearly a cause of huge frustration. i was struck by the disappointment in the political class and in the country’s leadership (our relatives are generally kadima supporters, with some likudniks, albeit i’d say they were pretty left for likud) together with the repeated recognition that “we are authors of our own misfortune”. if i had to sum it up in one sentence, what i heard from my family could be stated as: we should be doing our bit to fix the situation with the palestinians, but we just haven’t done so; it just seems to be too hard to do and there are too many forces, internal and external, that are pulling in the other direction. there is a sort of quiet despair that i haven’t seen before, together with a dogged determination to give the iranians and their hizbollah stooges a dam’ good kicking if they go any further. not many of the people i talked to were looking for a fight, but more than one person stated flatly that an attack on iran was on the cards; they are now purpose-building “sealed rooms” in their flats and houses as a matter of course against WMD-enabled rocket attacks. but in the meantime, life goes on, although there isn’t much hope of a resolution, people simply try and get on with life as best they can. i talked to a number of people about the ray hanania peace plan that i have previously promoted. it produced reactions varying from surprise (for all that it was reported in the israeli press) to disbelief to sceptical welcome. it was just hard for people to believe that such a thing was feasible although, in principle, they understood and supported the compromises that would be necessary. this, if nothing else, i found encouraging and cause for hope.

of course, none of this is the “front line”, politically speaking. i didn’t visit the separation wall, or the green line, or jerusalem. these places are where the people with an axe to grind (like extremists, journalists and activists) tend to cluster and they’re extensively reported. naturally, few of these people – and it is largely they who influence the political arena – it is rare, however, that anyone ever reports on how people think and act in israeli civil society itself, because it’s not nearly as “interesting” (read “nutty”).

in my view, there are a couple of things that are absolutely essential for israeli society to get out of the stalemate it’s currently in:

1. political reform – this eternal coalition-building simply gives extreme views and splinter groups disproportionate leverage.
2. a comprehensive commitment to social cohesion – this means not only that the ultra-orthodox are going to have to work, but that israel itself needs a five-day working week; israel once spent a great deal of effort on social integration, unfortunately it was mostly wasted on trying to build a socialist, secularist utopia. israeli society needs a vision for all its people, not just the excluded middle.
3. more long-term political horizons and engagement with the world; i think this will come from new realities in the diaspora, j-street and the new european jewish lobby organisation ought to help this reorientation.

i don’t know if any of these things are possible – the social, political and international pressures against it are formidable.

we can but hope.