From Half and Half:
I’ve always thought satire shows are a great way to understand how the locals see things. So, just to get you up to speed, this particular skit is with Roni Daniel, the military correspondent for Channel 2. Daniel is known for his right wing views and that he can never say anything bad about the army. They’re always right. In fact, he often urges them on television to do more, to be more ruthless towards the “enemy”. He was sent last week to Haiti with Israeli rescue team.
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First off, there was an error in the description of this skit which I thought should be fixed. You do want to inform your readers facts?
Second, I don’t know anything of Israeli society health. What I do know is that this kind of show mocking americans for how many civilians they’ve killed would never air on a prime time channel. So under your definitions of a “healthy society”. I would say Israeli society is “healthier” than American society.
Third, what it does show is that a satircal show like this can be aired on prime time, making fun of the government and its icons. That can’t be said of most countries in the middle east, increasingly more so as they get more religious.
Fourth, I’ll agree with some of the points you make, only when you are universal in applying them. As long as arab nationalism exists, arab apartheid and Islamic religious states exist, Israel should exist. That is a lesson learned from WW2.
Fifth, Your assertion that “Israeli society has largely traumatized itself out of caring about the Palestinians“
reflects your reasoning that there exists no palestinian terror and no palestinian aspirations for an Islamic state controlled by Hamas (whom were democratically elected by a majority)
(1) There was not an “error.” It said, “I’ve always thought satire shows are a great way to understand how the locals see things. So, just to get you up to speed, this particular skit is with Roni Daniel“
I guess there is room for confusion but most of my readers aren’t idiots.
(2) The description of a “healthy society” was not serious. it was the subtext accompanying your comment, which you’ve now confirmed. I don’t know what a “healthy society” looks like. not America or Israel.
(3) Yes so Israel is more open than authoritarian states. i have a gold sticker to paste on its constitution.
(4) whatever OK that’s utterly incoherent and makes at least 4 separate logical fallacies but you might at least trouble yourself to wonder why anti-Semitism appeared in its most vicious form in Christian Europe and not the Arab or Muslim Middle East.
(5) if you have an argument, make it. if I ever made those “reasonings” find and quote.
John,
“Arab apartheid?” My man, Israel is a creation of the Anglo-Saxon world imposed on the Greater Middle East. They have done an admirable job of replicating and perfecting South Africa’s apartheid to the point where the Bantustans look like paradise compared with the Balkanized West Bank and the open air prison that is Gaza.
Israel’s existence and policies (and Western support of them) have done more to further extremism in the Middle East than any strain of Islam. The Salafist/Wahhabi of Sunni Islam strain came to prominence post-WWII, in no small part due to the imposition of Israel’s existence on the region. Though the 1979 Revolution in Iran had a great deal to do with domestic politics, Israel was also a target for the clerics and allowed them to gain popular support by taking a hard line in support of the PLO.
Still gonna toe that line?
Just so you understand this better. This skit is making fun of the military correspondent Roni Daniel. It’s not Roni Daniel himself taking. Meaning this Satire show is making fun of the right wing. It’s funny considering that this show is apparently a main stream show if it appears on Israel’s most watched channel.
Thank you for that tidbit. Here is the subtext to your comment, which you didn’t write: because this is a mainstream show on Israel’s most-watched channel, it shows the health of Israeli society, since it’s able to mock itself. Thus the Israeli populace is aware at some subliminal level that it’s responsible for unspeakable atrocity, and that its actions are reprehensible, and it shows its collective humanity by…laughing at its internally dissonant discourse. Or something.
That’s fine, except satirists go well beyond the pale in most societies, and so in turn Israel is no exception. That’s point one. Point two is that one can easily be willing to indulge in self-deprecation but in turn one carries on with the behavior that one deprecates. This, also, is common, of people and aggregations of people–societies. It’s actually pretty common in Jewish culture, one of those things I do oddly enough know a bit about. So what does laughing do? It means that despite wide-spread [not universal] cultural support for barbarism, there’s a conflicting discourse. Israeli society has largely traumatized itself out of caring about the Palestinians except at best as a charity case, but of course there’s a human side to them. So they laugh, love their children, etc. Of fucking course they do, which is why there’s hope, with a sufficient figurative [or literal] thump on the head to re-jigger societal mentalities. But the notion that such a thump will come from internal self-criticism/dialogue is an indulgent fantasy–indulgent for supporters of Israeli policy, at least, who don’t have to deal with its consequences.
1) So someone who has no clue who roni daniel is and gets confused is an idiot?
2) “which you’ve now confirmed“
I haven’t confirmed anything. The subtext if any was to show that Israel has a freer society than it’s neighbors which you confirm in (3)
4) Point out the fallacies. Instead of telling me to trouble myself to wonder why anti-semitism appeared in its most vicious form in christian europe go ahead and enligten me. Just my two cents on the issue. Certain sects of christianity that were extremely anti-semitic in some parts and pure unadulterated nationalism in others, combined with rigid societies (Germany). A similar type of nationalism existed in Japan that resulted in the deaths of a large number of chinese. Don’t forget the most vicious form of anti-semitism appeared in a not so christian party.
John, you are situating freedom in Israeli society with respect to dictatorships. Think about it. For the rest, I’m trying to communicate at a level at which you understand what I am saying. It is hard. Try re-reading my initial paragraph as a satire of the thoughts going through your head, not as something I actually meant. What you confirmed was that those essentially were the thoughts going through your head.
Let me clarify that satire and self-deprecation are not indicative of the health of a society.
I like what Robert Downey, Sr. in an interview regarding his ‘60s film “Putney Swope” about satire–that making it today is “almost irresponsible.“
One need look no further than the Israeli TV show “Arab Labor” for a prime example of, as you say, Max, a “willing[ness] to indulge in self-deprecation but in turn [carrying] on with the behavior that one deprecates.“
Another one that comes to mind is the movie Team America. How many Iraqis/Afghanis/Palestinians have been killed since its release into the stratosphere of multiplexes and suburban homes 6 years ago?
“What I do know is that this kind of show mocking americans for how many civilians they’ve killed would never air on a prime time channel.”
He’s probably never seen South Park or the Daily Show
I think maybe facts and reality only exist when convenient within this mindset. When not convenient, make up new ones.
@ jewbonic — How so? Specifically point out facts that have been brought into existence by me. You make a number of accusations but you never back anything you say up. You are the one that blocks what goes on his site or alters what people say under their own names.
@Moses — When was the daily show aired on primetime? It’s aired on the comedy channel! Not only that, when have you heard john stewart make fun of the military or any military correspondent? Don’t confuse the republican army with the U.S. military.
Go look up the thread john. I am not your babysitter, and am not sifting through John Stewart or Southpark archives. try to understand the role of satire within Western culture.
Eretz Nehederet makes satire on left and right, rich and poor, Jews and Arabs.….. don’t conclude more than it is and not less, but that Israel is a very healthy democracy. Most of hers citizens love satire and humor although the delicate strategically conditions the Israelis live by. That is another face of their success and energy. By the way less than 20% of the Israelis see that program each week.
So healthy that it can mock itself. That’s cute, but doesn’t rise to the level of diagnosis. Democracy entails enfranchisement. Health entails treating citizens and non-citizens alike well. Here’s one metric, transposed from elsewhere, but it fits: how do you judge the health of a society? by how it treats its prisoners. by that measure Israel is kind of fucked, since 1.4 million of them living in Gaza aren’t treated too well.
Anti Semitism lives in some Muslim societies, as they were in the past. The political issue is just an excuse to cover the truth and the origin of hate: Islamism can’t see other societies aside living independently and in prosper. Israel according the Islamic interpretation was created on Islamic soil, Dahr el-Islam, on Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession] and as such has not any legitimacy at all. One may sign a peace treaty with Israel but yet not recognize the right of her existence. It is a phony peace, it’s not a peace, it’s a Mohammadine’s Hudna which will end in another terror blast against the Jews in Palestine. The charter of Hamas calls for the complete destruction of Israel.
States have no rights. Certainly not the “right to exist.“
Hamas has essentially renounced the Charter in practice and calls for a decades-long hudna. You make peace with enemies, not friends. You peel off extremists by isolating them, which means engaging moderates. US/Israeli policy does the reverse, making the “terror blast” you worry about inevitable.
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