yesh t'guva

Alon Idan has written an exceptionally insightful piece in Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/why-there-is-no-national-consensus-on-gilad-shalit-1.370410
He gets to the heart of the complete lack of public discourse on most issues challenging our state – except of course when it comes to cottage cheese. We can, with justification, heap blame on the Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu for homing in our most latent fears and encouraging them into the light. We can, whether we are erstwhile close friends of Bibi, or his serious detractors, publicly harangue him for a complete lack of policy, of any forward thinking process, of any initiative which will ensure our endurance as a state. Such effort would restate and reflect what we have had ingrained into us since David Ben Gurion said: “Every Jewish mother should know that she has placed the fate of her sons into the hands of commanders who deserve this trust,” and by extension, in our leaders hands, and so Gilad will be freed. As Ron Lauder, the erstwhile close friend of Bibi, so rightly says, the international community doesn’t give a damn about Bibi’s domestic political problems, and frankly when it comes to freeing Gilad Shalit, neither should we the voters who put Bibi back in power. Why did those who voted for him think that Bibi had changed? Because he said so? Well to borrow from West Wing, letting Bibi be Bibi has produced a repeat of his last cadence as prime minister, only this time the damage to us is reaching irreparable proportions. To change this, all of it, and especially to free Gilad Shalit, we the people of Israel, its citizens and voters, need to free ourselves from the dungeon Bibi and his friends have locked us into, the one with the word FEAR on the door. We are the strongest regional power aren’t we? We are not victims any more, are we? We have a state where once we were dispersed. That takes great courage. That courage is enough for a sense of national confidence to do the things that a nation can and should do. So first, we must free ourselves from fear and victimhood and then we must free ourselves of those who perpetuate fear and victimhood as a means of shutting us all up and keeping themselves in power. One proof that we are freeing ourselves is to stand up and shout Free Gilad Shalit! Not as an event or a show, a transient emotional experience, but because unless Gilad is free, we are prisoners.