By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson
MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Having reached the advanced age of 82, I know that it is a pointless exercise to look back with nostalgia to earlier times, to days of my ‘carefree’ youth. It was a time when I could look to the future with hope for a time of peace and productive work.
I looked forward to living a life of freedom and interest in a country I could call my own, and where I would no longer be part of a minority. I moved to Israel, which I perceived as a country where my life would be free of the constraints of having to conform to a set of values which I did not share. And where the sun shone most of the time.
My luck sent me my perfect life-partner, with whom I was able to build a happy life. We struggled financially at first, but we managed to study and progress to building a family and a home of which I am very proud. The wider political situation was not my major concern, but I was aware of the general legal and administrative situation in the country which enabled us to build our life in relative security, overcoming the setbacks presented by wars and security concerns.
Nowadays, although our little birds have flown the nest, we are still able to stay in contact and manage to meet up together relatively often, which is not always the case in other, larger countries. It gives us great satisfaction to see our children and grandchildren building their own lives and careers, each one in a different sphere, and living happy and productive lives, most of them still in Israel.
But at the moment over everything hangs a dark cloud of uncertainty and apprehension. The country is being taken along a political path that bears ominous echoes of repressive regimes. The trend towards politicization of Israel’s legal and administrative structures is unsettling. The current Prime Minister is a past master of the art of manipulating public opinion through slick rhetoric and the constant production of a token ‘bogeyman’ with which to instill fear into the general populace. In the past it was Iran and other countries, today it is the ‘deep state,’ as well as individual officials to whose independent opinions he objects.
Unfortunately, he missed the real bogeyman, Hamas, opting for his own deleterious aims to funnel funds from Qatar to that terrorist organization, with disastrous results. The war in Gaza he has restarted is sure to have a negative effect on attempts to rescue our hostages.
In addition, the burden on the country’s financial stability imposed by the excessive budgetary allocations to the ultra-orthodox, that segment of the population which is neither productive nor willing to share in the defense of the country, is an ever-growing problem. Attempts to rectify the situation are stymied by their disproportionate political clout. Their rapid rate of population growth does not bode well for the future. In addition, extremist messianic elements which form part of the government seem set on taking the country to the brink of disaster.
Massive popular protests of the dire situation go unheeded, and the current government’s entrenched parliamentary majority provides no hope for any change. Unless a miracle happens, it looks as if we will have to wait for the next general election in another two years for any chance of replacing the current set of bandits.
My dream of an open, liberal, democratic Israel is fading.
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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson is an author and freelance writer based in Mevasseret Zion, Israel.
You can always move back to The USA or come and live in a country of 5 million people and 5000 Jews. Where ever you go yours views will be in the minority. The country of 5 million is of course New Zealand. LOL
John — Dorothea actually made aliyah from England. — Don
The heart of the opposition’s argument lies not in religious or right-wing extremism but in Netanyahu’s unwillingness to conform to the long-standing ideological preferences of Israel’s secular, European-rooted leftist elites.