“At Long Last a Clear Victory”

January 24, 2007

Reading today’s newspaper it smacks me in the face that this is unfolding as a particularly difficult week for us Israelis—old timers and newly minted alike. Never really hardened to fighting for our survival, we are waging battles on a variety of fronts.

Our military continues to reel from the aftershocks of the Second Lebanon War of this past summer. Certainly grave mistakes were made in the prosecution of the war and the readiness of our forces (especially the reserves) for battle. Last week Israel’s Chief of the General Staff Dan Halutz resigned to be replaced by Maj.-General Gabi Ashkenazi, described as “a soldier’s general,” in contrast to Halutz whose roots are in the elite air corps. Many analysts, both military and political, view the events of the summer as but a prelude to a second round of hostilities against Hizbollah next summer. We shall see if they are correct though everyone hopes not. Also on the military front, our soldiers and our civilians are challenged in the south against a daily barrage of Kassams from Gaza (despite a cease-fire declared by the Palestinians and observed solely by the Israelis), so far the restraint imposed by the political leadership is holding though near the breaking point.

Then there are the battles in the political sphere. Most notably, it appears that it is inevitable that indictments will be handed down against President Moshe Katsav accusing him of one count of rape and several lesser charges of sexual coercion and inappropriate sexual conduct against four other women as well as misuse of public funds for private gifts and obstruction of justice. Though he is scheduled to relinquish his office in July when his seven-year term comes to an end, it is very possible that Katsav will be Israel’s second president to end his tenure prematurely under a cloud of legal problems. Meanwhile, the Kadima-led government seems to flounder about as Prime Minister Olmert’s performance ratings continue their downward trend. Yet, problems in Likud, Kadima’s only serious rival, prevent the Right’s leading party from posing any significant threat to the coalition at the present time.

On the bureaucratic front, investigations continue exposing corruption in the Department of Taxation with the internal (revenue) rot apparently running to the very highest echelons. Israel’s once squeaky-clean civil bureaucracy has now become suspect and lost much of the public trust that it once enjoyed. And this may be only the tip of the iceberg of corruption in the civil service.

If these battles raging around us each and every day make it seem that we are besieged by problems too enormous to bear and which adumbrate the sure demise of Israeli society, please do not be misguided by what appears to be a jeremiad. In reality, the coin of these negatives has an obverse positive side for, if they expose weaknesses in the fabric of Israeli society, the fact that they are exposed and are being addressed in the open forum of public scrutiny is an indication of the strength—not the weakness—of this country. Such open confrontation to wrongdoing, misuse of power and bad planning by public officials makes Israel unique amongst the nations of the Middle East and, in fact amongst the nations of the world. And, only a nation that is willing to confront its problems and its shortcomings openly and honestly can over-come them.

And more, with all of these battles being waged, it is heartening to see that Israelis are—like most other people in the developed world (though, if truth be told, we’re more between the developed and semi-developed worlds)—concerned about simple everyday things like family, work, buying groceries, deciding where to go on vacation, trying to fathom how to program the VCR, and complaining about the price of a tank of gasoline. The “everyday battles” of life so familiar to Americans and Europeans also preoccupy most middle-class Israelis and bear eloquent witness to how “normal” the reality of our lives really is.

For the past several weeks the letters-to-the-editor columns of the Jerusalem Post have provided the forum for the vox populi of the Anglo-Israeli community protesting against the draconian actions of the Hot cable company in its decision to discontinue offering the BBC Prime channel in its basic service and “compensating” subscribers with new Ethiopian and Chinese channels. But, that is not all, Israel’s satellite TV provider Yes-TV (coincidentally) announced that it was discontinuing the Star World channel which provides American television programs. Both Hot and Yes claim that their decisions to drop BBC-Prime (Hot) and Star World (Yes) were made for financial reasons as the channels would not renegotiate lower rates with the providers and neither Hot nor Yes determined that the “limited” viewership of these English-language channels warranted the high costs of service.

So—get this—Hot subscribers who wanted to protest the cable company’s decision to drop BBC Prime by switching to satellite would lose Star World while those satellite subscribers who wanted to register their dissatisfaction by switching to cable would lose BBC Prime. Does this smack of collusion on the part of the two companies—a cartel perhaps? Yes announced that it was going ahead with its plans to drop Star World by January 15^th, Hot scheduled to drop BBC Prime on February 1^st. The government business and media regulatory agencies averred that there was nothing illegal in the providers’ actions and there was nothing that the government could do to prevent them from proceeding with these business decisions. And there it stood.

Limited viewership? What about all the so-called “Anglos” in this country—all of us from English-speaking countries? How about all those Israelis who use the media to improve their English? Without BBC Prime or Star World, how would they get to enjoy re-runs of “Becker” or (my favorites) a variety of British programs that I describe as “dumb Brits making bad real estate decisions?” I did my own survey of our personal viewing habits and found that at least 75% of our viewing time was spent watching BBC Prime (not meaning to be un-patriotic, but most of the American programming on Star World is junk, I prefer the high-brow limey stuff). How could those heartless corporate suits (in Israel can you still call them “suits”?) get away with such larceny? Is this but a hopeless battle, a tilting at windmills?

And then, in today’s paper, there was that article on page 7 (if you ask me, it warranted front page coverage), “Hot keeps BBC Prime—But drops David Letterman.” Okay, I can accept the trade off, I hardly, if ever, watch Letterman anyway, at least I can still witness some poor dolt from Dorchester spending 450,000 quid for a bitty bungalow in Brighton. Sweet victory! We, the Hot subscribers won! But ours is not an absolute victory for our brothers and sisters in TV-arms—the Yes subscribers have not won their war against corporate greed, as of January 15^th the satellite tap to Star World has been shut off—no more “Cheers” re-runs and “Friends” is available exclusively on Israeli-channel 4. And what of those protesters who quit Hot and joined Yes over the threatened but unrealized loss of BBC Prime? Apparently, the magnates at Yes are not totally heartless, those who regret their hasty change-over will not be charged an installation fee for Yes unless they took advantage of a sales promotion. So, sometimes, the little guys win one.

Wars, social and political traumas, we have them aplenty—and amidst it all, we still worry about little things like what we watch on TV, go figure. What does that say about us? I think that it says that we are “normal people” despite the fact that we live in a place where life seems to be anything but “normal.” We live, much more than survive, and that says a lot about the resiliency and vitality of Israelis and Israeli society I think. People looking in on us from the outside might wonder how we get by, what keeps us from caving in to fear and despair. But, the view from here, from the inside is so very different. I find that I have a great appreciation for so much in my life here—even for the little things, even for what channels I get to watch on my TV. Sometimes the little things put the big things in perspective and sometimes it’s vice versa.

Shalom from Jerusalem.