THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

am a bit bent, in a Jewish way. She is olive-skinned and dark eyed and I am pale andblue-eyed. She is a native of France and very French and I am an Israeli with thebrash roughness typical of Israelis. In short, we do not look alike.But we are alike in many unapparent ways. Couples become similar. Friends andeven rivals become similar over time, in their manners, speech, and body language.This is the result of years of mutual concessions and compromise. As people becomesimilar, so do nations. Sometimes it is only the sound of their language, but often it isalso in their inner worlds: values, narratives, heritage, and political actions. Thetraveler can see the similarities between France and the French part of Belgium.Switzerland has much more in common with its neighbors Austria and Germany thanthe spoken German dialects. They share fashion, customs, and humor, when it exists.What does Israel resemble? In many ways Israel resembles no other country. Inother ways, Israel is frighteningly similar to the countries we never wanted toresemble. In order to describe Israel, we will have to look at some of its prominentcharacteristics. No other country shares Israel’s absolute freedom of speech. GreatBritain decreed total blackout and media censorship during its foolish war withArgentina in the Falkland Islands in 1982. George W. Bush’s United States will notshow the caskets from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the media. Israel, on theother hand, sets no limits on speech and expression. In Israel one can say everythingabout everything. People can call for the assassination of their prime minister andalmost nothing will be done against them. Walls are covered with racist graffiti callingfor “Death to the Arabs” and saying “No Arabs, no terror,” and the police and otherauthorities do not even bother to erase the shameful slurs. In the ultra-Orthodoxneighborhoods of Jerusalem, one can see more swastikas than on all the desecratedJewish graves in the world. Freedom of expression in Israel crossed the line a longtime ago and has led to a form of verbal anarchy that is very close to active violence.Our whole country is held hostage by a bunch of settlers who threaten civil war, callon soldiers to refuse orders, undermine the state’s authority, and deny its right tocarry out the majority’s will—all this in the name of freedom of expression andaffiliation.So, with such a divided psyche, Israeli society is split to its core. What keeps thiscountry together are the wars. Often we say that we are lucky to have the Arab as anenemy, otherwise we would have devoured one another a long time ago. Often wesay that if our enemies were smart, they would lay down their arms, turn their swords