Location: Deconstruction
Israel is lying to itself about 'United Jerusalem'
Haaretz
Author: Gideon Levy
Date of Pub: 29/11/2009
Those types have always been seen on big-city streets, talking to themselves, asking and answering, shouting, speaking in a low voice, deliberating and pontificating. As children, we were afraid of them. They were "crazy." That's exactly what Israeli public discourse is like. We are talking to ourselves, inventing bogus axioms and sticking with them as if they were decreed from on high, convinced that the whole world accepts them. But we are only talking to ourselves. No one else accepts them. The Israeli collective is not only talking to itself, it's deceiving itself completely.
Jerusalem is a perfect example of this. It's a neglected city, filthy and in parts frightfully ugly, stricken by poverty and ignorance. Nationalist, religious and social tensions are tearing it asunder, and part of the city is under the burden of occupation with all its most violent characteristics. The purported education, culture, openness and prosperity - far from the actual situation - are the locus of our national aspirations.
It's a capital city which not a single country in the world recognizes, but it's "our eternal capital," in the words of the prime minister. It's a relatively marginal city, certainly when compared to Tel Aviv. From many standpoints it's a city on the margins which secular Israelis don't exactly flock to for a good time. It's a city even the prime minister preaches about. But he doesn't practice what he preaces when he flees the city for the weekend, whenever he can. It's the "heart of the nation," but a city that has gradually become the city of the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs, society's two poorest minorities.
It's the "rock of our existence," but a divided and dismembered city that has in our deceptive words become "united Jerusalem." It's a city whose political future is more enshrouded in uncertainty than any other in Israel, but it's "ours forever and ever." So this discourse, which is accompanied by plenty of self-deception, is being conducted among ourselves, only ourselves. The Jerusalem syndrome has taken hold of us all. Continue reading here>>>
DECONSTRUCTION:
The piece titled “Israel is lying to itself about 'united' Jerusalem” is written by the notorious radical left editorialist Gideon Levy. He provides the reader real insight into the positions held by those in the radical-secular camp toward dilutting Jewish history and the notions of Jerusalem within it. A further insight that Levy provides us is an undiluted view into the political motivations of those within the Jewish ranks that wish to simply abolish Zionism and its Jewish Nation-State, replacing it with a globalized Euro-UN bred polity, where Jews are no longer master’s of their own destinies, but just one of many voices in Palestine, which defacto is no longer a Jewish protectorate.
The staunch secularist, Levy, who writes for one of the three major newspapers in Israel, from his high horse declaims that all Israeli’s suffer from religious fervor when it comes to Jerusalem. He goes further assasinating all such persons accordingly as “Those types”, finishing his rant maligning the city Jerusalem, “It's a neglected city, filthy and in parts frightfully ugly, stricken by poverty and ignorance.” Filled with the ardour of a true bigot, labels the city filled with religios and Arabs anyway, “a city that has gradually become the city of the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs, society's two poorest minorities.” This sort of passive prejudice that is buttressed by a serious disdain for any religious motivations that may allow somehow a certain loyalty to Jerusalem, reveals what this piece actually is…It is a hate rant pure and simple. The preachings of a madman, who like a true crazy, thinks all who disagree with him is themselves mad, truely revealing itself as a trite theme that seeks intellectual protection through the ad hominem attack.
Thus for such a psychosis the only solution to this malady is to make all opposed cursed with it, and only he, and he alone is the one who can see the platonic light at the edge of the cave. Ironically, he is writing this unpopular opinion in a popular national newspaper, therefore defeating the point that Israel is homogenous when it comes to Jerusalem. The sad truth is there are many who feel the same way as Levy does in Israel today.
But one rather quickly connects the dots by the time this anti-Israel, anti-religious tirade is finished that this is not about facts, but about international polls and post-national misgivings. In order to dispossess the Jewish people of their inalienable right to make Jerusalem the capital of any polity it would establish, one must first destroy the desire for it. Jerusalem as the site of it’s two holy temples and venerated by prophet, sage and Jew alike for thousands and thousands of years, is beyond a whimsicle attachment for this beloved city, but expectantly Levy defines and radically reduces this desire as “The Jerusalem syndrome has taken hold of us all.”
Which brings us full circle, the madman defaming all who have any sort of fidelity to Jerusalem characterizes as either “self-deception” or madness all because the rest of the world refuses to recognize our legitimate claim. The first reason Levy provides is simply false and filled with willful ignorance, even a cursory respect for history would lead one to understand the eternal link between the Jewish people and this city. The second is filled with shoddy logic, for if we were to take the opinions of the world into account anytime Israel did anything in regards to asserting its sovereignty Israel would have been defeated and destroyed the moment it became a nation.And this is precisely what people of Levy’s persuasion desire, an end to Zionism, an end to any of the Jewish peoples aspirations and any form of sovereignty. That, for Levy, is far to narrow, far too historically motivated, far too Jewish for a cosmopolitan, post-modern intellect, whose true desire is for a colorless world where we are governed by a generic empire of human rights and a materialistic secularism where sentiment, historical fidelity and national values have absolutely no place.
Date of Pub: 29/11/2009
Those types have always been seen on big-city streets, talking to themselves, asking and answering, shouting, speaking in a low voice, deliberating and pontificating. As children, we were afraid of them. They were "crazy." That's exactly what Israeli public discourse is like. We are talking to ourselves, inventing bogus axioms and sticking with them as if they were decreed from on high, convinced that the whole world accepts them. But we are only talking to ourselves. No one else accepts them. The Israeli collective is not only talking to itself, it's deceiving itself completely.
Jerusalem is a perfect example of this. It's a neglected city, filthy and in parts frightfully ugly, stricken by poverty and ignorance. Nationalist, religious and social tensions are tearing it asunder, and part of the city is under the burden of occupation with all its most violent characteristics. The purported education, culture, openness and prosperity - far from the actual situation - are the locus of our national aspirations.
It's a capital city which not a single country in the world recognizes, but it's "our eternal capital," in the words of the prime minister. It's a relatively marginal city, certainly when compared to Tel Aviv. From many standpoints it's a city on the margins which secular Israelis don't exactly flock to for a good time. It's a city even the prime minister preaches about. But he doesn't practice what he preaces when he flees the city for the weekend, whenever he can. It's the "heart of the nation," but a city that has gradually become the city of the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs, society's two poorest minorities.
It's the "rock of our existence," but a divided and dismembered city that has in our deceptive words become "united Jerusalem." It's a city whose political future is more enshrouded in uncertainty than any other in Israel, but it's "ours forever and ever." So this discourse, which is accompanied by plenty of self-deception, is being conducted among ourselves, only ourselves. The Jerusalem syndrome has taken hold of us all. Continue reading here>>>
DECONSTRUCTION:
The piece titled “Israel is lying to itself about 'united' Jerusalem” is written by the notorious radical left editorialist Gideon Levy. He provides the reader real insight into the positions held by those in the radical-secular camp toward dilutting Jewish history and the notions of Jerusalem within it. A further insight that Levy provides us is an undiluted view into the political motivations of those within the Jewish ranks that wish to simply abolish Zionism and its Jewish Nation-State, replacing it with a globalized Euro-UN bred polity, where Jews are no longer master’s of their own destinies, but just one of many voices in Palestine, which defacto is no longer a Jewish protectorate.
The staunch secularist, Levy, who writes for one of the three major newspapers in Israel, from his high horse declaims that all Israeli’s suffer from religious fervor when it comes to Jerusalem. He goes further assasinating all such persons accordingly as “Those types”, finishing his rant maligning the city Jerusalem, “It's a neglected city, filthy and in parts frightfully ugly, stricken by poverty and ignorance.” Filled with the ardour of a true bigot, labels the city filled with religios and Arabs anyway, “a city that has gradually become the city of the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs, society's two poorest minorities.” This sort of passive prejudice that is buttressed by a serious disdain for any religious motivations that may allow somehow a certain loyalty to Jerusalem, reveals what this piece actually is…It is a hate rant pure and simple. The preachings of a madman, who like a true crazy, thinks all who disagree with him is themselves mad, truely revealing itself as a trite theme that seeks intellectual protection through the ad hominem attack.
Thus for such a psychosis the only solution to this malady is to make all opposed cursed with it, and only he, and he alone is the one who can see the platonic light at the edge of the cave. Ironically, he is writing this unpopular opinion in a popular national newspaper, therefore defeating the point that Israel is homogenous when it comes to Jerusalem. The sad truth is there are many who feel the same way as Levy does in Israel today.
But one rather quickly connects the dots by the time this anti-Israel, anti-religious tirade is finished that this is not about facts, but about international polls and post-national misgivings. In order to dispossess the Jewish people of their inalienable right to make Jerusalem the capital of any polity it would establish, one must first destroy the desire for it. Jerusalem as the site of it’s two holy temples and venerated by prophet, sage and Jew alike for thousands and thousands of years, is beyond a whimsicle attachment for this beloved city, but expectantly Levy defines and radically reduces this desire as “The Jerusalem syndrome has taken hold of us all.”
Which brings us full circle, the madman defaming all who have any sort of fidelity to Jerusalem characterizes as either “self-deception” or madness all because the rest of the world refuses to recognize our legitimate claim. The first reason Levy provides is simply false and filled with willful ignorance, even a cursory respect for history would lead one to understand the eternal link between the Jewish people and this city. The second is filled with shoddy logic, for if we were to take the opinions of the world into account anytime Israel did anything in regards to asserting its sovereignty Israel would have been defeated and destroyed the moment it became a nation.And this is precisely what people of Levy’s persuasion desire, an end to Zionism, an end to any of the Jewish peoples aspirations and any form of sovereignty. That, for Levy, is far to narrow, far too historically motivated, far too Jewish for a cosmopolitan, post-modern intellect, whose true desire is for a colorless world where we are governed by a generic empire of human rights and a materialistic secularism where sentiment, historical fidelity and national values have absolutely no place.
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