Inside the Occupied Palestine
The Israeli settlers celebrated the 50th anniversary of Yom Kippur with a symphony of sorrow and clashes. This is the short version of what happened in different cities of Occupied Palestine between different poles of the settler’s society on the occasion of one of the most important, if not the most important, events in their calendars.
The thick and dark cloud of fragmentation overshadowed every effort to honor the anniversary of the only thing Israelis can call a “victory”.
The bipolar nature of Israeli settlers which was, miraculously through media tricks, kept from the eyes of the world, popped open during the Yom Kippur celebrations to an extent the mainstream media was not able to hide.
The bipolar nature of society consists of a secular stronghold on one side, and a religious fortified front on the other. And these two major forces which run the dynamics of society-ness of Israeli settlers – a group of unoriginal people coming from over 100 countries all around the world gathered around one common goal which is obtaining profits and otherwise, would have never tolerate each other if it wasn’t because of that goal – are now engaged in clashes which were triggered by Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reforms (It’s wrong to blame only Netanyahu for these conflicts, he only brought the dividedness to the surface).
In the latest instance, during the Yom Kippur celebrations this week, the occasion which is supposed to be held sacred by each and every so-called Israeli, the two sides of the conflict were engaged in hateful and in some cases violent physical confrontations which overshadowed the fest of victory.
Disturbing footage of verbal and physical fighting started circulating in social media from the early hours of the celebrations in different cities, but the hot spot, like always, was Tel Aviv. And as expected, the first official who reacted to the violence appeared to be no other than the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
He blamed the leftists for the clashes in Tel Aviv and tweeted, “the leftist protestors rioted against the Jews during the prayers”. These remarks set the people from the other side on fire with anger.
Benny Guntz, the ex-minister of defense (you read minister of war) of Israel reacted to Netanyahu’s tweet, saying “Netanyahu – the biggest hate-producer, ignited the fire. It was wise [of me] to leave him”.
These two short tweets which, do not exceed 500 characters combined, unleashed the monster of verbal assail and an avalanche rhetoric amongst Israelis. One of the most senior rabbis of Israel, rabbi Eliyahu who is a member of the Religious Zionism shared his deep insight into the future of Israel, if there is any, and predicted that the current trend will result in “prohibition of circumcision” in future. “These are violent people who abuse the name of democracy to impose their own values on the majority. […] For two thousand years, we have fought for our religious freedom, and we shall not leave it behind in Israel”, he emphasized.
Rabbi David Lau, another senior rabbi in Israel who bears the title of the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel also said, “I heard, with abundant sorrow, about the incidents of the holiest day for the people of Israel. The most special day of the year was turned into a day of mourning because of the barbaric provocation of those who hate religion. They are people who have forgotten about the essence of this day and continue to spread hatred”.
He also noted that “the residents of Tel Aviv attended the prayers without intending to impose anything on anyone” and bitterly confessed that “these events remind us of the hard days in the history of Judaism”. Lau called for Israelis to remember that “Judaism is as important as being democratic”.
The leader of the Israeli opposition, Yair Lapid, voiced his discontent with the argument put forth by Netanyahu about the rebellion of leftists and tweeted, “What are you talking about? Aren’t they Jews as well? Weren’t they attending the prayers? You are the prime minister of Israel, why do you keep stimulating?” Amongst all the comments, the most rational one, probably, came from a commentator in one of Israel’s outlets, admitting the drastic failure of settlers “as a society”.
In a piece titled “It doesn’t matter who is right, we lost” the writer pointed out the tragedy unfolding before the eyes of every witness all over the world as history repeats itself. “Before diving into the details of the footages and the words to see what has happened and who is right and to comment about that, I more feel that we have failed”, he wrote.
Stressing the epic failure of the Zionist settlers to construct a united society he said, “we lost, yes! Collectively, as a society which up until this year, knew well how to pass through this day, the most beautiful and most significant day in the Hebrew calendar, without arguing and fighting”.
He also pointed out the explicit bipolar formation of settlers these days and warned about a horrifying future: “I understand the worries of both those who are afraid that their liberal atmosphere would be dominated over by religious extremism, and those who feel that religion in Israel is under attack in 2023. We are at the end of Yom Kippur, but unless we open our eyes, we will face horrifying days in future”. The other side of the conflict didn’t quit arguing.
Comments about how “the Israeli society has woken up” or “nothing will be like in the past ever again” kept appearing in social media accounts constantly. Avigdor Liberman, an Israeli controversial politician who occupied the office of minister of finance between 2021 and 2022 reacted in accordance with the trend and tweeted “what we saw in Tel Aviv yesterday was another effort by an apocalypse-oriented government to transform Tel Aviv into Tehran.
The next step of the administration in the future, probably, will be a bill to establish a fashion police!”. The stances of the group which are mostly identified as “leftists” were not left unnoticed. An unofficial, yet absolutely controversial figure of the rightwing political hemisphere of Israel, Yair Netanyahu – who servs as the son of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – pointed the arrow of criticism to the demonstrators’ direction who have been disturbing the peaceful nights of his father’s political life for over thirty-eight weeks now and accused them of having antisemitic tendencies and sympathy for “massacre”! “The demonstrators of Yom Kippur are like the antisemitic people who massacred the Jews and then blamed it on the Jews”.
It didn’t take long before the Israeli PM revealed his true intentions for intensifying the conflicts. He called for the Israelis to retain their unity during the crisis time and tried to market the peace plan he had proposed for the normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia by calling it “a historical moment”.
“Many countries in the Middle East [East Asia] are requesting a peace with Israel. The extension of the peace circle is a historical moment, and we are committed to it by all means while reserving the critical interests of Israel”. These remarks did not meet with the praise expected and failed to put the flames of assaults out and the antagonism is still ongoing until the time of the writing of this report. For all that matters, as nearly all the commentators agree, this year’s Yom Kippur was an obvious marker of an unprecedented deepening social split, the strokes of which the fractured structure of a pseudo-society called “Israel” is incapable of bearing.
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