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,
Israel Hits Middle Age
I
As the country
celebrated,
signs of change
were noted.
INA FRIEDMAN
ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
C
I CI
srael celebrated its 45th
birthday last week. And
while 45 is still quite
young as nations go, from
a more anthropomorphic
perspective the country is
filled with signs of settling
down, of mellowing — of
reaching a sort of national
middle-age.
Not that Israel has run
out of its famed frenetic
energy. What's happening
here is not f.o much a slow
down as it is a shift in focus
stemming from some hard
realities and a scaling down
of expectations.
Perhaps the strongest
indication of this shift is
what might be compared to
the common mid-life syn-
drome of coming to terms
with one's limitations.
Israel has gone through a
number of phases. The "gee-
whiz mood" of the young
state, which lasted well into
the 1960s — and was cap-
tured so well by the Dosh
caricature of the sabra in
shorts, sandals, and floppy
cloth hat — was born of a
mixture of naivete, linger-
ing intoxication over having
achieved statehood (against
all odds), and a degree of
deserved self-congratula-
tion.
"For the first time in
2,000 years" was a phrase
.heard over and over as suc-
cessive national institutions
emerged and the country
developed at a rate far out-
pacing other states of the
post-colonialist Third
World. The challenge of
building a nation from
scratch also inspired flights
of rhetoric that make con-
temporary Israelis blush.
David Ben-Gurion borrowed
"a light unto the nations"
from Isaiah to describe the
model society that the Jews
would build in their home-
land. It's been years since
anyone here made reference
to such aspirations. Tastes
change. What once seemed
"inspirational" now sounds
too pretentious to repeat
without having to suppress
a giggle.
But in the absence of
material comforts, rhetoric
was an important staple in
the state's early days.
Israel's first two decades
were particularly hard
years, marked by a flood of
immigration, economic aus-
terity and the shadow of the
Holocaust.
Israeli and French sky divers form a Star of David to mark Independence Day.
Most Israeli families were
cramped into two-room flats
(plus kitchen). Private cars
remained a luxury well into
the 1970s. Television, sus-
pected and decried as a cor-
rupting influence, was not
introduced until 1968.
Even
telephones
remained a rare household
item until the 1970s.
Clothing was dowdy; fash-
ion scorned as frivolous.
Aesthetics, in general, were
relegated to the realm of
"luxury" by all but the most
refined of Israelis.
Then, just as Israel was
on the verge of entering its
third decade, the Six-Day
War came along and
launched the country on a
long and liberating "high"
that even the bitter toll of
the Yom Kippur War did
not entirely puncture.
With the energy and self-
confidence that youngsters
in their 20s invest in their
careers, Israel, under the
tutelage of then Defense
Minister Moshe Dayan,
launched into its "benign,"
or "enlightened," occupation
of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip — a venture that then
journalist Shabtai Tevet
dubbed "the Cursed
Blessing."
At first the occupied terri-
tories were perceived as a
"trust," a "chip" with which
to bargain for peace. Before
long, however, the return to
the biblical landscapes of
Judea and Samaria
spawned new movements in
Israeli society. Touched by a
deep desire to reclaim
Israel's birthright and usher
in the "messianic age,"
nationalist-religious cur-
rents like Gush Emunim
began to settle the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Then, with the advent of
Menachem Begin's Likud
government in 1977, accel-
erated settlement ;through-
out the Land of Israel
became a government poli-
cy. Moved by little more
than a chance to trade their
box-like apartments for pri-
vate homes in the suburbs
at cut-rate prices, Israelis
Israel's age old
ideology is long
since past.
flocked to new settlements
in the heart of a hostile
Palestinian population.
Even the evacuation of
the Sinai settlements in
1982 in fulfillment of the
peace treaty with Egypt and
the outbreak of the intifada
in 1987 failed to halt the
settlement juggernaut. In
fact, it was not until the
intifada had crossed the
Green Line and penetrated
Israel's cities 1990, in the
form of random stabbings,
that a reassessment of the
relations between Israel and
the Palestinians began.
One result on the political
plane — brought about with
a good deal of coaxing from
the Bush Administration —
was the Madrid Conference
and initiation of the peace
process. Less than a year
later, the electorate rejected
the Likud's Land of Israel
policy in favor of Labor's
more pragmatic approach to
resolving the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict.
And under the pressure of
continued Palestinian ter-
rorism, the same trend has
continued. Last winter the
notion of a unilateral with-
drawal from the Gaza Strip
was the talk of the town.
Now, in the wake of the
month-long closure of the
occupied territories, the lat-
est buzz word is "separa-
tion" between Israelis and
Palestinians.
Though the thrust of this
trend may sound like politi-
cal faddism, on a deeper
level Israel appears to be
coming face to face with an
acceptance of its limitations
so familiar to people in their
40s. Even Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin's recent
pledge to defend Jews wher-
ever they may be is taken
less as holy writ than run-
away rhetoric, especially as
the dominant trend among
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