On the inability to grasp the essence No one in Israel asks what all of this says about “us :the Israelis, the Jews."

 Gilad Atzmon

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8 hours ago ·

On the inability to grasp the essence

The Israelis are very upset with the creators of Naza; they want to strip them of their citizenship, punish them and their families, arrest them. Some even insist that torture is the way forward. They are accused of being traitors, the "enemy within," ‘self-haters’—often labeled as ‘Nazis’ and ‘capos.’

Yet, hardly no one in Israel asks: What does it say about us (Israelis and Jews) if they are actually telling the truth? What if we, as Israelis and Jews, are rightly and correctly credited with the worst documented crime against humanity in history? What if we are indeed responsible, as a people, for the systematic mass murder of tens of thousands of Palestinian children, women, elders, and journalists?

These are the kinds of questions that require empathy and ethical awareness. They imply an ability to introspect.

Naza was a great opportunity, most likely the last one, for the Jewish State to examine itself, to ask the right, most necessary and most painful questions.

I am talking here about a type of engagement that put into play the exact human qualities that are (apparently) totally absent in the Jewish state. No one in Israel asks what all of this says about “us :the Israelis, the Jews."

These are not political questions about ‘Zionism’ , colonialism, occupation or apartheid. These questions are within the realm of theological, metaphysical and philosophical.

Ultimately, the most telling thing about Israeli Hebrews is this very inability to look in the mirror and confront any essential, fundamental questions.