{"id":3154,"date":"2008-05-14T08:35:26","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T13:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=3154"},"modified":"2008-05-14T08:35:26","modified_gmt":"2008-05-14T13:35:26","slug":"ran-hacohen-israel-at-sixty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=3154","title":{"rendered":"Ran HaCohen: Israel at Sixty"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ran HaCohen, Antiwar.com, 14 May 2008<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Christians \u2013 the ancient self-designated heirs to the Jews \u2013 commemorate Christ’s tormented way to resurrection and redemption in the weeks leading to Easter. Zionists \u2013 the modern self-designated heirs to the Jews \u2013 have their Lent after Passover, commemorating what they construct as their via dolorosa leading to the “Jewish State.” In the weeks following Pesach the country indulges in a nationalistic orgy, hardly imaginable in any other modern state, reminiscent of a primitive tribe. If you want to understand how a whole nation is led to defy its own interests, to follow a corrupt, de facto military leadership wasting the nation’s fortune and blood on unnecessary wars and immoral occupation for decades, pay a visit to Israel shortly after Pesach.<\/p>\n

A couple of decades ago, it all started with the Holocaust Remembrance Day, about a week after Passover (all Israeli public holidays follow the Jewish calendar, which is otherwise used only for religious purposes). This is no longer the case: the weeks before that are an ever more popular time for Jewish pilgrimage to Poland, where Israeli teenagers, a year or two before their military service, are taken to a series of concentration camps, destroyed Jewish communities, and other sites of memory. These journeys \u2013 at least eight days long \u2013 earn the blessing of the state and are regulated by the Ministry of Education: an official goal is “to boost national feelings.” The ministry also demands that all the young pilgrims, even the secular ones, consume only kosher food flown from Israel and served soaked and lukewarm in Polish hostels. Parents, however, have to pay the entire costs themselves, about $1,500 per child, which makes it a privilege of the middle class and above. This makes sense, of course. The middle class has to be persuaded ideologically; the obedience of the poor is secured by more violent means.<\/p>\n

[Read the article<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ran HaCohen, Antiwar.com, 14 May 2008 Christians \u2013 the ancient self-designated heirs to the Jews \u2013 commemorate Christ’s tormented way to resurrection and redemption in the weeks leading to Easter. Zionists \u2013 the modern self-designated heirs to the Jews … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-OS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}