THE KIBBITZER

My apartment in Tel Aviv is around the corner from Kikar Rabin, the central square that is the site of choice for demonstrations, celebrations and municipal events. It is also, of course, the place where former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, an event that transformed the plain and not particularly attractive square into a tourist attraction of sorts.

Prominent amongst the visitors to the square on any given day are groups of young American adults on so-called birthright tours, zionist propaganda missions sponsored by the Israeli government, US Jewish federations and a number of rich individuals, such as Charles Bronfman.  The purpose of bringing these groups to Israel, according to the organization’s web site, is to “diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people.”

Two days ago I wrote about the dispiriting spectacle (to put it mildly) of an American president having to bend the knee in front of a group of his countrymen doing the bidding of a foreign country. I was referring, of course, to Barak Obama’s appearance before the American Israel Publics Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to put forward his side of the disagreement with Bibi Netanyahu.

Since then a couple of things have happened that put a far more alarming spin on the Obama-Netanyahu row.

Well, as was to be expected, Obama chickened out.

Faced by the zionist hordes at the AIPAC conference, Obama backtracked on even the partial independence he had declared two days previously. All it took was a public tantrum by Netanyahu and a couple of days of Israel-inspired threats, and Obama put the chains back on his own ankles. No more emancipation for this president; slavery to the zionists is preferable, especially when there is an election to be won and a reactionary senate to make his life miserable.

I’m getting a little tired of Barak Obama.  He says all the right things (well, many of them) with great earnestness and commitment, but even as he’s speaking you know that fuck-all is going to happen. It’s all hot air.

Last night’s speech on the Middle East, was typical of what we’ve come to expect of Obama: liberal, even-handed, decent and so sincere it makes you want to puke. All that, and useless besides. Totally, fucking useless. A waste of oxygen. He would have done better blowing up one of those water mattresses (in South Africa we used to call them lilos, for some reason) and going to hang out with some chicks at the White House pool.

My fucking dog kept me up the whole night with his barking.

Why was he barking? Who knows? Why does Bibi talk the shit he talks and Ehud ‘Fukushima’ Barak fuck up everything he touches?

Because he’s Israeli – paranoid, obsessive, narcissistic and loudmouthed. Whatever is going on outside – a cat scruffing up the leaves or a neighbor talking too loudly on the phone at three in the morning – it’s all about him. And not only is it all about him, but it’s aimed at him. He’s being victimized. And, being a post-Holocaust dog in the sovereign state of Israel, he’s not going to take that shit anymore.

Like the rest of us here, he has assumed the twin burdens of being one of the chosen and the eternal victim.

This morning, I’m tired and irritable, while the arsehole is sound asleep in his basket, farting gently in his oblivion. That’s also typical; the wounded innocence. Me? What did I do? Why is everyone pissed off with me? Who was barking all night? What do you mean occupying and brutalizing the Palestinians for decades? There’s no-one to talk to.

The historian of the future is not going to lack for primary sources when writing about the monumental folly that was Israel. He’ll have his work cut out for him, slogging his way through the labyrinths  of bureaucratic jargon, bombastic self-justifications, depraved rabbinical fatwas  and smug media apologias. Not only are we hell-bent on screwing up, but we’re going to do so in a blaze of words, video and bits & bytes. This time around, we’re not going to go quietly.

Maybe, just maybe, a lone and unassuming voice from a modest apartment in Tel Aviv can illuminate where all the bluster and pomposity befuddles. That’s the humble purpose of this blog: to reflect from street level on Israel’s descent into dementia.

If nothing else, it will give me something to do at night when the fucking dog is barking.