--- In Tzfat@yahoogroups.com, "flakfire"
I wrote:
You might add the inability to rethink our mythology about ourselves or be confused by the facts to your list.
You just lived through a war in which the Israelis were most certainly not at their best, but you persist in repeating the old cliches that give you an illusory sense of security.
That is one of the most obiquitous and serious problems in Israeli society.
flakfire wrote:
> Otherwise, they are generally quite paltry and mediocre: blase, over-> confident, arrogant, ungrateful, easily sidetracked and none too > smart!
I wrote:
Speak in the second person plural. Why do you exempt yourself?
flakfire wrote:
> And that includes ALL Sabras: Jews, Arabs, left wing, right wing, > charedi, frum, professors, professionals, chilloni....! If it wasn't > for the constant threat from the outside plus the constant stream of > new immigrant Jews, Israel would quickly degenerate into a farrago!
I wrote:
The way you use the term 'ferrago' is a malapropism. Your other IDs use malapropisms in the very same way. Ditto for the run on descriptions and overly emotional exclamation marks.
Can we get real? Perhaps that's a funny question to pose in a response to someone who posts with an alias (or two, or three...)
Can we admit that we have failed miserably?
We have not created a society that is in any wise superior to that of the Gentiles.
We do not exceed the Gentiles in average IQ in Israel, as we do in the Diaspora. (The average IQ of American Jews is 117. For Ethiopian Israeli Jews it is 105-110. For Ashkenazi Israeli Jews it is 100. For Mizrahi Israeli Jews it is 88). Our political system is not superior to the Gentiles'. Our judicial system is not superior to theirs. Our quality of living is not superior to theirs. We have not created a society that is more peaceful than theirs, more cultured, more interesting - in short, more anything. Let's not even talk about statistics of road accidents. We have a better system of medicine than does the US, but it is inferior to that of Gentile countries that likewise have socialized systems of medicine.
We are mediocre in every way, in every sphere.
Scientists who have talent are working for foreign research and many of them beat a permanent path out of here.
In all spheres there is a brain drain out of the country.
Certainly we are not proving either to ourselves or to the world that we are chosen.
We, in becoming a nation with a state, lost everything we once were. We also lost the respect and the awe of the nations.
We are sending our boys to die for the myths we want to believe about ourselves.
It doesn't matter that we have a nuclear arsenal. We can't use it without making mushroom soup of ourselves too. We are smack dab in the Middle East. So, if someone thinks that is a reason to have a state, they are dead wrong.
More than terrorist bombs, our illusions and delusions are blowing up all around us.
The only thing we do well is be second fiddle in others' countries.
When we are not in the driver's seat we make great driving instructors. Those who can't do teach.
I heard of a man who arrived here from Morocco as a child. He had a fistukia (a stand for nuts and snacks) that he barely made a living from. One day he decided to try his luck in Morocco. He became a successful businessman there. The same man who could hardly run a fistukia here ran a corporation in Morocco. The only difference was the location.
The only sane way to go is to realize that we are entertaining very dangerous illusions and delusions about ourselves. The foremost among them is that we are fit to run a state of our own.
I say we face the reality that we are making a total mess of our ersatz state and that we are at the point of losing control totally. I say the smartest way to go is to cut our losses, pack up and go back to wherever we came from and salvage whatever we can of what Jewry once was.
This country will go out , either with a bang or a wimper, if we persist in the belief that we are the holy People in the holy Land and that everything we do is blessed.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
