This week Reporters Without Borders published its annual Press Freedom Index. As could be expected in the current political and media climate, Israel was ranked 93rd and 150th (inside and outside the Green Line), behind such bastions of the freedom of expression as Lebanon, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates. Sure enough, Israel was singled out together with Iran in the group’s analysis of the index.
I am not at all upset by this new record of progressive anti-Semitism. Actually, I am quite happy. By falling off the deep end with its blatant anti-Israel rhetoric, international public opinion is administering a long-overdue course of shock therapy for Israel’s chronic insecurity complex. After decades of trying very hard to appease, of paying an arm and a leg (actually hundreds upon hundreds of very literal arms, legs, limbs and lives of innocent terror victims) for the illusion of a new Middle East, of fantasizing about eating hummus in Damascus and doing business with the Emirates, of bringing the world the latest technical and medical innovations, of beating the world at its own game of military ethics, Israel is finally waking up to the fact that no matter how lovable it tries to appear, it will never become the world’s darling.
Believe me, the treatment is working, because Israelis are internalizing the message. They are refusing to cooperate with Goldstone’s kangaroo court, canceling all-included tour packages to the Turkish Riviera, and staying away from cultural talks with the Israel-bashing Egyptian intelligentsia. Even the ultra-liberal Israeli press is beginning to call things by their names.
Slowly but surely Israel is rediscovering Ben Gurion’s maxim of “it doesn’t matter what the Gentiles will say; what matters is what the Jews will do.”