The week in Israel is coming to an end, as Pesach is at our doorstep. Tel Aviv tomorrow night will be a ghost city, with all of its young residents taking off for the homes of their parents usually outside of Tel Aviv. Of course, many Israelis have left for vacations overseas, this week being the busiest of Ben Gurion Airport. Once upon a time, the majority of travelers would be Jews coming to spend Passover here, but these days those numbers are way down.
Politically this week the career of the head of the opposition MK Bougie Herzog effectively came to an end. At this point, he is what one would call the “walking dead”. His final downfall was not the fact that the police are investigating him for campaign law violations, but rather, it was his statement two days ago in Ashdod that the problem with the Labor party is that it has been seen as worrying more about the Arabs and then about the Jews. I understand what he was trying to say- but he is over as a politician leading the Labor. His policy of trying to move to the right of Netanyahu seems pathetic, especially when Bennet cannot even do it. Bennet actually succeeded this week in outflanking Herzog from the left. After Herzog stupid statement Bennet stated I am the Minister of Education of all Israelis, Jews and Arabs and I love them all.
This was a week of tunnels found, buses being blown up by Hamas in Jerusalem; thankfully no one was killed. It was a week that Netanyahu decided to have a cabinet meeting on the Golan to declare that the Golan will always be ours, in the meantime he managed to get the world to say it was Syrian. It was a week where the big story this morning was that Netanyahu threatened to fire Bennet at the cabinet meeting. Of course, he did not fire him and bring down his government. Today, Netanyahu visited Putin for the third time this year and announced that he will return for another visit in two months. Obama is in Saudi Arabia and Netanyahu is in Moscow- growing up who would have believed it.
Tomorrow night we all sit down at our Seders, in the end, we traditionally say next year in Jerusalem. As a nation, we no longer have to say it, as someone who lives in Tel Aviv it’s not something I wish for. As a kid after the ’67 war we would say the rebuilt Jerusalem but after some of the architectural monstrosities that have been built in Jerusalem these past few years ( think about the Holy Land project)it’s hard to wish for that. We have been saying Jerusalem in peace and that is about as good as we can wish, and seemingly as unattainable as Zion was for the 17th centuries Jews. We did finally return and hopefully we will eventually be able to live in peace, I doubt our generation but I still hope for my grandson’s generation.
So I wish my readers a Happy Passover, may you all have meaningful seders with friends and family!
My Dad in Jerusalem in the early 70’s
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