Opinion | It’s Become Taboo to Speak of Hope

Israel's Prime Minister Yair Lapid addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September.Credit: Julia Nikhinson

“"‘Jewish' with 5 million Arabs? ‘ Democratic' with apartheid that is not discussed? … there is hope for a better future, and hope is the thing we now need most.

"Ambiguity works. You only have to know how to talk in a convoluted manner."

In my family they didn’t talk about divorce, cancer or death. The official excuse was: “Careful, the children are listening!” But there was something more profound in that statement.

               There was in it a belief that if you don’t talk about something, it will be forgotten, dry up, wilt and dissipate.

               If we don’t talk about nuclear bombs, then we don’t have any, if we don’t talk about apartheid, it doesn’t exist.

              When you don’t talk about the Green Line, then there is no line, and it wasn’t green.

Soon it will also be impossible to talk about “processes,” because if we talk about processes in the Germany of 1938, people will immediately realize that the reference is to what is happening here now, and they’ll be angry because there is no comparison. And if we don’t talk about a Palestinian state, it won’t be established. There are topics that aren’t discussed, because when we bring them up we are placing a forgotten issue on the agenda. In so doing we are taking a risk that Joe Biden will hear Yair Lapid talking about Palestinians, and then he will be reminded, smack his forehead in astonishment, and shout: Palestinians! How could I forget?

To combat this airing of forgotten issues, we invented “ambiguity.” Ambiguity safeguards us from painful reminders. Ambiguity sweeps everything under the rug. The truth is hiding there, but it’s not as painful as if it were standing before our eyes. More than ambiguity was meant to conceal the truth from our enemies, it was meant to hide it from ourselves.

Ambiguity is also wrapped in a sealed package bearing the words: “sensitive security reasons.” You hear “security reasons” and jump to attention. Security reasons are an insurance policy. For “sensitive security reasons” you can buy submarines for your cousin, and nobody will ask you why.

And what about the media? After all, its job is to find out, on your behalf, what you wanted to know and didn’t know how to find out. Don’t rely on the media. If you rely on it, you will never know why former Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit failed to investigate Benjamin Netanyahu, or what happened to the trial of former Tel Aviv prosecutor Ruth David, why the coronavirus documents are classified, and in what miraculous way the daughter of Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman became a millionaire.

And if former MK Idit Silman doesn’t confess to journalist Amit Segal, we won’t know what she and her husband Shmulik were promised. And If Netanyahu doesn’t sue David Artzi for defamation (he won’t), we won’t know whether his wife Sara is involved in the appointment of senior government officials. The media is lazy and indifferent, give it instant celebrity Hadar Muchtar and see how the sparkle returns to its eyes.

We must admit: Ambiguity works. You only have to know how to talk in a convoluted manner. They won’t tell you that half the army is busy guarding the settlers, that would make your blood boil, right? Instead, they’ll tell you that they’re “cutting back on training exercises,” and “damaging the army’s preparedness.” You’ll understand by yourselves why.

We’ve become accustomed to not believing our ears. Look at the sour faces with which the left, the peace camp, received Lapid’s speech in the United Nations advocating the two-state solution. What didn’t they say about that speech. Nonsense, an election ploy and so on. They expressed surprise that he didn’t drive from the airport directly to Palestinian Authority headquarters in the Muqata with flowers and a box of chocolates.

The question is, what does the left want if not two states for two peoples? There’s also a possibility that in his statement about two states, Lapid has concluded his historic role. He may be unable, unprepared or unwilling to turn words into deeds. Turning words into deeds does not depend only on the speaker, but also on the listener – on us, on our ability to remind him and his successors that this is the goal, it’s distant, and we have to fight for it. I have yet to see the masses taking to the streets in a call to leave the territories.

In Lapid’s speech, perhaps subconsciously, there was a “vision,” in other words a goal, in other words an answer to the question of what kind of future there is here for our children and grandchildren. It contained a description of a future that differs from the one promised by those who declaim “Jewish and democratic,” like zombies.

“Jewish” with 5 million Arabs? “Democratic” with apartheid that is not discussed? With “processes” that cannot be mentioned? The vision of two states is not realistic now, but a vision by nature is not realistic now, just as our Jewish state does not resemble Herzl’s vision of the Jewish state. In Lapid’s vision, even if he himself doesn’t believe in it, there is hope for a better future, and hope is the thing we now need most.