Bread and circus

Monday, September 20, 2004

ust yesterday, the military correspondents were admiringly reporting on the ingenuity of a new radar system installed in the Sderot area, able to provide about 20 seconds warning of incoming Qassam rockets launched from Gaza. Apparently, the Qassams hadn’t heard about the radar, which was depicted as the first step toward a ‘solution’ for the rockets, which have become psychologically debilitating to the residents of the Negev town. A rocket flew into the town this morning, hitting a building and causing some damage and trauma to some passersby. The rocket presumably was another round in the tit for tat retaliations into which Israel and the Palestinians have long since settled: Last night, a ‘senior’ Hamas man, said said to be involved in Qassam attacks, was killed by soldiers in Gaza, so this morning, a Qassam was launched at Sderot.

But that annoying exchange was buried under two other ‘bread and circus’ stories. The bread story was an announcement last night that Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Interior Minister Avraham Poraz agreed to set aside NIS 250 million to pay the salaries of some 20,000 Israeli municipal workers who have not been paid in months, and in some cases, for more than a year. The government says it is ready to release the money if the mayors – and unions – sign agreements for restructuring that would include massive layoffs. The Histadrut says that the deal is meaningless because salaries must be paid for work done – and the workers have been going to work. Already, the government is pushing legislation that prevents unpaid workers from suing for not only their salaries but punitive damages and interest. So, the union, led by One Nation MK Amir Peretz, who joins Labor officially in January 1, 2005 and has transparent ambitions to run for the party leadership and then challenge Netanyahu if and when he becomes Likud leader, is going ahead with general strike plans for next week.

Woman Crucified # 13 by Silvia Rosenberg, mixed media on recycled paper, 20x30 cm.

he circus was the visit to Israel by Madonna, the pop singer turned kabbalist disciple. The rabbis of Israel seemed far more upset by the idea of the [female] entertainer daring to engage her mind with the esoterics of Jewish mysticism, than about the governent’s failure to make sure tens of thousands of municipal workers get paid. Madonna, who is said to have taken on the Hebrew name of Esther, and whose latest children’s book stars a child named Yakov and an elderly teacher who may or may not be a rabbi, was chased by paparazzi as she paid a visit to the grave of a famous kabbalist, went to the Western Wall, and crossed the street from her hotel in Tel Aviv (where some 3,000 people, most from overseas, paid $4,000 a piece to stay for a few days, including attend New Year’s prayers) to a popular beachside restaurant. When she finally took a stage to say a few words, she said that it was as safe in Israel as it is in New York and that the only danger she experienced came from the photographers.

Back to security: Far more significant than Madonna, of course, was the latest round at the IAEA about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The mainstream Israeli press seemed pretty unanimous in its reports on the IAEA session, saying that barring something surprising – a U.S. assault? an Israeli assault? a coup in Iran – Tehran is on its way to a bomb. But the conventional wisdom is gradually changing from worry that Tehran’s only reason for owning a bomb is to blow up the Jewish state, to concern that Iran wants the bomb as a deterrent that would enable it to continue using Hezbollah – and lately Hamas in the territories – as its proxy in the Israeli-Arab conflict., and as a deterrent against the Americans in case they are considering crossing the Iraqi-Iranian border. Meanwhile, an Iranian national was arrested in Azerbaijan photographing the Israeli embassy.

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