So this weekend I went to another MASA Shabbaton in Jerusalem. This one was on the Israeli political system, and I now feel that I have a grip on how the government works, and why many issues go unresolved (not that I have the faintest clue as to how to fix any of them). It’s a very representative government, but the excess of parties (you only have to get 2 percent of the vote to get representation in the Knesset!) leads to crazy coalition building and thus sacrifices on the part of all the parties. Party A may want to pass legislation reforming the current marriage laws that will only give legal marriage licenses to 2 Jews being married by an Orthodox rabbi, but Party A needs the cooperation of Parties B and C to get it through the Knesset. If Parties B and C need Shas or Mafdal (two of the main religious parties) for legislation they want to pass, no dice.
And this, children, is why nothing gets better.
The MK they got to come speak was very right wing, which was actually really cool because most of the time we hear from lefties and he was really really not left. The one thing he said that seemed (terrifyingly) fair to me was his logistical objection to the proposed Palestinian State in what is now the West Bank. Israel left Gaza, he said, and Hamas took over the territory. They have successfully used Gaza to consolidate their power and launch Qassams into Israel. The IDF wants to intervene, but they recognize that if they invade Gaza they will not be able to leave in the foreseeable future (like us in Iraq). So, the West Bank is a lot bigger than Gaza. What the hell kind of security threat will Israel be leaving behind if they end the occupation there?
Tonight at the yeshiva we had a speaker from Breaking the Silence, an organization of former IDF soldiers who served in the West Bank and go around giving accounts of what the occupation is like. As he described it, the IDF occupation is like the Stanford Prison Experiment on a wider scale. Decent, normal guys are given really large guns and told to make sure that the population respects/fears them. They are made to understand that they can essentially do whatever they want (short of murder) to any Palestinian without repercussions. We saw photos of IDF soldiers raiding a house because they wanted to watch the World Cup and this family had a television. Any real communication between the soldiers and the people is inhibited because to a Palestinian any IDF soldier is a potential abuser and to an IDF soldier any Palestinian is a potential terrorist. Below is a picture of children in the West Bank playing a game, and it really affected me. The Palestinian children with sticks are playing IDF soldiers. The Palestinian children with their hands against the wall are playing… Palestinians.
Now this is Art!