Israel's perpetual emergency has become a political tool

[Classical_Liberal]

srael's perpetual emergency has become a political tool
By Glenn Frankel
Jun 17, 2004, 15:35
A few weeks back, while Israeli soldiers were blasting through Rafah in search of Palestinian militants and cabinet ministers were playing musical chairs over a proposal to disengage unilaterally from the Gaza Strip, an even more telling measure of Israel's perpetual state of siege quietly worked its way through the Knesset here.

For the 56th year in a row, lawmakers voted to renew the state of emergency that has been in effect since the Jewish state was founded in 1948. Fifty-six years is a long time for an emergency – most babies born in extremis then are either long-cured or long-dead by now – but for Israel, crisis has always been a natural state. And the latest renewal is not just a recognition of grim reality, but something of a triumph for those on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide who believe that crisis is their best friend, a state of affairs that allows them to define and dominate the struggle.

You can view the conflict through many complex and overlapping prisms – Jew vs. Arab, soldier vs. militant, secularist vs. believer, dove vs. hawk, two-state proponent vs. territorial maximalist. But in many ways it has evolved into something very simple: those who strive for normality vs. those who thrive in the hyper-charged state of emergency. And despite Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's qualified triumph last Sunday in force-feeding his Gaza withdrawal plan to a reluctant cabinet, it seems to me that the latter remains in command, asserting the relentless power of blood, history and tradition, and suffocating at birth any and all attempts at normalcy.

Normalcy was what Israel originally was supposed to be about. Theodor Herzl and the early Zionists believed Jews needed a state of their own to take their rightful place as a nation among nations. David Ben-Gurion once quipped that Israel would be considered a success only when there were Jewish policemen and Jewish prostitutes. But a number of historical factors – including the enduring hostility of Arabs to the idea of a Jewish homeland in their midst, five wars and the fevered messianic dreams of an influential minority of Israelis--marred that original vision and transformed Israel into a besieged garrison state.....

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_9245.shtml

[number6]

1. perpetual emergency and perpetual war on terror

perpetual profits for Military Industrial Complex

[Violet_Crumble]

2. The siege mentality....

Leaders like Sharon wouldn't last five seconds if the population looked inwards rather than outwards. Normalcy would probably mean little to no attention, and no funding from Israel's great and powerful protector. So in order to fend any normalcy off, percieved threats (such as neighbouring states wanting to destroy Israel - Israel is in no danger of being overrun) are built up into very real and imminent threats, and the state becomes a cocooned fortress where the military becomes an object of veneration, and force becomes the only language to deal with any threats. The author is right in saying that the original vision for Israel was normalcy, not what it has become...


Violet...