Nineteenth-century novelist and editor of Le Figaro Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr might not be the name which instantly crops up when considering famous French literati, but he is paradoxically ever-relevant to our Israeli reality. Why? Because in January 1849 he observed in his satirical monthly Les Guêpes that “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”

The English adaptation of his remark is “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

This truism is nothing less than invaluable for understanding the news which keep mercilessly bombarding us even in the midst of what’s supposed to be the sweltering summertime’s silly season. Each new headlines appear to overshadow the previous sensation. But should we be shocked in the first place? Or are we being cleverly manipulated by agenda-merchants?

If we took a leaf out of Karr’s journal, we wouldn’t have been surprised by any recent events. Insight fortified by hindsight would have steeled us against attempts to mess with our minds.

Take the sad case of Moshe Silman’s self-immolation. There are various psychiatric predispositions to dramatic suicide by fire. This has become a not uncommon form of radical political protest. Continue reading →

One of US President Barack Obama’s few admitted regrets is his inability to conjure up an instant resolution to our vexing dispute. This seems a tad odd considering that during her recent whirlwind visit to our troublesome midst, his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had waxed ecstatic about this being a time of “great change and transformation in the region.”

If things are so upbeat, why are they so intractable?

Both Obama and Clinton would be a lot less frustrated and much wiser had they turned to the late Yitzhak Shamir for clues.

He was endlessly mocked by members of our chattering classes when he stated outright that “the sea is the same sea and the Arabs are the same Arabs.” He plainly harbored no illusions in a wishy-washy world of wishful-thinking, where reality often becomes a most unwelcome intruder.

Political vogue decrees that disagreeable facts shouldn’t inconsiderately interfere with uplifting fantasy, but Shamir didn’t mind being denigrated as insular, intransigent and above all terminally uncool. Continue reading →

I couldn’t help rubbing my eyes in disbelief at the joyful celebrations which greeted former premier Ehud Olmert’s acquittal in two corruption cases and the simultaneous belittling of his conviction on a third – what his cheerleaders portrayed as the “minor” matter of breach of trust.

I couldn’t help wondering whether the same reactions could have been remotely conceivable had the defendant been named Binyamin Netanyahu.

I vividly recalled when the “breach of trust” innuendo was hurled accusingly at Netanyahu, not after a courtroom verdict but after the prosecution admitted it had no case to at all take to trial. That in no way prevented a raging tempest from ominously swirling around Netanyahu.

In diametrical discrepancy to the Olmert phenomenon, there were no orchestrated (or other) compunctions about attempts to bring down a serving prime minister at the outset of his term. Nobody dared suggest adoption of the French law which shields PMs in office from investigation and prosecution. In fact, keeping Netanyahu from his weighty duties was deemed a laudable objective.

If anything, the prevailing bon ton dictated that it was a darn shame Bibi wasn’t hauled off to court, summarily tried, convicted and ignominiously booted out. To hear trendsetters, that was what he deserved because the prosecutors, who estimated that they didn’t have the goods on him, nevertheless rebuked him for supposed intentions which they admitted they couldn’t prove. That alone sufficed to pillory Netanyahu.

And woe to anyone who dared not toe the line. Continue reading →